


Legendary Journeys

by antietamfalls



Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Xena: Warrior Princess, Gods, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Television, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antietamfalls/pseuds/antietamfalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow the adventures of Sherlock, demigod son of Zeus, and his faithful warrior-companion, John, as they journey the Earth battling monsters, minions, and a whole host of vengeful gods!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fusion with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess for the 2015 [Sherlock Fall TV Season](http://falltvseasonsherlock.tumblr.com/)! This fic was written on a chapter-per-week schedule over an 11 week period. There was no beta work involved and as a consequence, the text is quite raw. I hope you enjoy it for what it is!   
>  
> 
> The main cast:
> 
> Sherlock Holmes as [**Hercules**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Hercules)  
>  John Watson as [**Iolaus**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Iolaus)  
>  Irene Adler as [**Xena**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Xena)  
>  Molly Hooper as [**Gabrielle**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Gabrielle)  
>  Mycroft Holmes as [**King Iphicles of Corinth**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Iphicles)  
>  Jim Moriarty as [**Ares, God of War**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Ares)  
>  Greg Lestrade as [**Autolycus, the King of Thieves**](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Autolycus)
> 
> Check out the [Hercules/Xena wiki](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) for additional information about the universe!
> 
> Fun fact: each chapter title is named after one of my favorite Hercules episodes. :3

 

**S1, Ep01: “For Those of You Just Joining Us”**

 

_Parthia, on the outskirts of Athens_

 

The inn at Parthia was lively and boisterous as Sherlock and John slid laughing onto the wooden benches of an open table. Warm evening air drifted in from the doors thrown wide and torches flickered orange light across the bustle of local villagers come for a meal and drink among their neighbors.

“So he shoved me around a bit,” John said, chuckling, as Sherlock waved a gauntleted hand toward the serving girl. “‘Say that again!’ he said, and, well, I couldn’t help it--”

“I _told_ you not to mention it,” Sherlock said. “Didn’t I tell you not to mention it?”

“Yeah, it’s not so easy for some of us to resist a good taunt, Sherlock--”

“Three times I must’ve said it, John.”

“--so I turned around and said right to his face, ‘If you weren’t uglier than the backside of the Stymphalian Bird, maybe your wife wouldn’t have run off with a cyclops!’”

“And? What happened?”

John shrugged. “Well, there were twelve of them and one of me. Spent the night thirty feet up a tree, covered head to toe in mud, while they rode around trying to figure out where’d I’d got to.” He grinned proudly. “Old hunter’s trick.”

Sherlock folded his hands in deep contemplation. “Dregan must be stupider than I thought.”

“What, and I couldn’t be more clever?” John complained.

Sherlock shot him a look implying he seriously doubted it.

John snorted a laugh. “I suppose we can’t all be born with the ‘wisdom of the gods’--”

“I never said I was _wiser_ ,” Sherlock cut in. “Far more intelligent, certainly, but not wiser.”

The serving girl arrived with two bowls of the evening’s stew and a loaf of crusty bread. John rocked forward and tore off a chunk, using it to gesticulate his point. “I’ll tell you something, Sherlock. If everyone knew about half the times I’ve saved your arse from this sorceress or that chimaera or whichever warlord decided an invasion sounded like a good idea on any given day--”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”

“--they’d be erecting statues to _me_ in these little backwater towns. It’s just you’re the famous one, is all--”

“I never said you were useless, John. I simply implied that you’re not clever enough to outwit Dregan.”

John threw up his hands in frustration. “He’s a centaur mercenary! A particularly oafish one, at that!”

“What difference should that make? You think because you have two fewer feet that you’ve got the monopoly on brains?”

“Hold on, I remember quite distinctly several disparaging remarks you made about mercenaries when--”

“ _John_!” exclaimed a woman’s voice.

John abruptly choked and sputtered on a chunk of lamb, and when he whipped around on the bench and saw who it was, he seemed ready to convulse again. Sherlock raised a bemused eyebrow at the slender, curly-haired woman trotting between the tables to reach them, her long skirts swaying in excitement.

Oh!” she cried, positively beaming at John. “They said Sherlock was in the village tonight and I just knew that meant you’d be here!”

“Evanthea!” John said, his voice strangled into an unnaturally high pitch.

“You wily fox!” she cooed, making Sherlock wince at the infantile tone. “Fixing to surprise me, were you? Well, I beat you to it!”

John’s face grew pale as goat’s milk as he struggled for a response. Sherlock stifled a laugh into the back of his hand. She seemed to be looming closer to John with every passing second, completely oblivious to the fact that he had clearly forgot she lived in town.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Sherlock finally interceded. “Evanthea, is it?”

She batted her obnoxiously large brown doe-eyes at Sherlock. “Yes! I suppose John’s told you all about me, hasn’t he?”

“You and half the Peloponnese,” Sherlock muttered beneath his breath, doing an abysmal job of keeping his grin at bay.

Evanthea tossed her chin elegantly. “Oh, he’s always traveling, you know, with you or in service of this king or that. I’ve counted the days, my darling golden warrior. You’ve no idea!”

“Listen, ah, Evanthea,” John delicately said. “We’re on important business, yeah? And I promise to come see you just as soon as there’s time--”

She pressed a fingertip to his lips, silencing him. “Not another word, love. Not a single word. I know duty calls you. I heard about the hydra, of course, and the She-Demon of Ister, and all those people you saved from the Mother of All Monsters. I shall wait until you are free to return to me.”

Then she grabbed John by his vest and yanked him forward to smother him with a gigantic, face-sucking kiss. And when she finally came up for air, and brushed away a strand of his mussed blond fringe, and gave him the solemn look of a soldier’s woman burdened with duty, she composed herself and marched straight out into the night.

Sherlock’s chuckling escaped in an abrupt and terrible snorting noise. John buried his face in his hands and shook his head, absolutely miserable.

“You know I’ll have to give her a pity fuck now, don’t you?” John groaned as Sherlock lost his composure to rib-cracking spasms of laughter. “Gods, you’re unhelpful.”

“What should I have said?” Sherlock asked, wiping away his tears of mirth. “‘Sorry he can’t warm your bed tonight, but I’ve already called dibs’?”

John gave him a dark look. “You know perfectly well that wouldn’t have been a secret to her or anyone else. Warrior-companions, indeed.”

“I’m astonished you remembered her name.”

“I nearly didn’t. There’s something to be said for the inspirational qualities of blinding mortification.”

Sherlock glanced toward the inn’s open door. “Not your usual type, is she?”

John prodded at his food with despondence, his appetite apparently gone. “You were off attending some diplomatic reception for your brother. I was restless.”

Sherlock reached across the table and took up his hand, twining their fingers together. A small smile returned to brighten John’s face.

A strum of a lyre caught their attention. It seemed a ragtag musical quartet of villagers had managed to assemble itself, probably in Sherlock’s honor; people were always doing that sort of thing when he breezed through the more provincial places. If John wasn’t around it usually resulted in a critique of their unpolished musicianship and a quick departure, but as the tenuous notes of a serving girl’s amateur mezzo-soprano led the players in a lively tune, Sherlock felt John’s hand squeeze his and decided it might not be so bad to sit awhile and listen.

Inns were a rare treat. Most nights were spent under the stars as they journeyed, or in a stable or a cave if they were particularly fortunate. Money rarely passed their fingers. Living off the land and the gratuity of the people they helped was more than sufficient. Incredibly, John enjoyed the transient and dangerous lifestyle as much as he did. Sherlock found his eyes drifting to his partner. Trailing the angles of his jaw, the warm sun-kissed glow of his skin, the rise and fall of the medallion against his sternum. They had a room here. With a bed. An exceedingly comfortable bed, which would be made all the more attractive with John lying bare-skinned upon it.

Feeling the weight of Sherlock’s gaze, John gradually abandoned the spectacle of entertainment to meet it. Intent gleamed heavily within the deep blue of his eyes, and Sherlock felt their reciprocating sweep as if a physical force. It was a ritual as familiar as Sherlock’s own quickening heartbeat. Twenty years together, and it always managed to feel like the very first time.

A twitch of John’s brows, and Sherlock needn’t his preternatural deductive abilities to know how closely John’s thoughts echoed his. They fought as one, thought as one, loved as one. It made them an imposing pair in any conflict, though Sherlock relished the benefits in between.

“That’s him?” scoffed a sudden voice. “That’s the legendary bastard of Zeus?”

John’s fingers immediately retracted to form a fist. The music had stopped (Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure how long ago), and they turned in unison to regard a trio of ruddy-faced men, each sporting a belly to attest to a weakness for drink. Sherlock sniffed, catching whiff of barley-based ale on their breaths. Not strong enough to indicate drunkenness, but certainly enough to supply a sort of foolhardy courage.

“His name is Sherlock, and I’d mind my words if I were you,” John warned.

“He doesn’t look so tough,” said one.

John fixed a cool glare upon them. “Oh, and I suppose _you_ could’ve taken out that nest of harpies harassing the local farmers?”

“Perhaps we ought not have bothered, John,” Sherlock added, “with such formidable champions as these defending the village.”

“We were getting round to it,” griped the largest of the three. “In our own time.”

“Before _you_ show-offs turned up,” said another.

Sherlock arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Whatever feelings of inadequacy you’re experiencing, I assure you John and I intend to remain in this enchanting backwater only as long as is absolutely necessary.”

The men sneered disagreeably. “You’ve got something to say to us, say it straight,” declared one.

“Very well,” Sherlock said, blinking. He pointed to the large one. “Your wife makes excuses for your drinking, but only because your mother publicly scolds you for it as if you were still a five year old.” He nodded at the middle one. “Your three children espouse the embarrassing nature of both your atrocious manners and bodily odor behind your back.” He smirked at the last. “Your neighbor has been gradually moving the fence posts between your properties over the last three months and you haven’t noticed due to your habitual intoxication and astounding stupidity.”

John chimed in with a bright grin. “That and you forgot to lace your breeches after your last trip outside for a pisser. Or was that _you_ making the alley-dogs howl?”

A fist came flying toward John, but Sherlock saw the twitch of muscle coming a mile away. Sherlock caught it cleanly with one palm, to the utter startlement of its owner, and twisted the wrist around until the man cried out in pain.

“Lay a finger on John, and you shall wish dearly that you hadn’t,” Sherlock said. His victim shrieked aloud as Sherlock tightened his grip, feeling tendons stretch painfully around bone, and released him.

The other two stared with bulging eyes at their wounded friend cradling his arm. John had risen above his bench, standing in squared defiance with a fierce glint to his eyes. He was the smallest man there and yet seemed to cast the largest presence; the physical embodiment of Sherlock’s threats.

“Bloody bastard of Olympus!” one snarled. “Freak! It’s no wonder Zeus abandoned you!”

In the past, John had crippled men for saying less, and so Sherlock thought it exceptionally diplomatic of him to merely growl in outrage and launch forward in a vicious full-body tackle. Bowls and mugs and loose-packed earth went flying, as did a significant amount of ale that had been bought and paid for, and in no time at all the entirety of the inn had joined into the fight.

Sherlock smirked as he dodged a few errant swinging fists and dove into the fray, executing strategic strikes as he went; punches to previously-bruised ribs, jabs to exposed nerve centers, a knee or two to a case of lumbago. Chairs went soaring and men crashed into walls and beams and tables, shouting as they flew. Sherlock spotted John gleefully dismantling a group of four ruffians near the bar, whacking them in the face with their own pewter ale mugs and flinging them away.

It was a decent fight, Sherlock thought as he took a boot heel to a man’s rear and sent him levering over a pile of his neighbors. Not the sort of fight you write home about, but noteworthy enough for an evening’s entertainment. Certainly John would be glad for the chance to get his blood pumping.

Two fellows wielding chair legs for clubs came screaming at Sherlock from different directions. He stood calmly until the last second, at which point he stepped aside and let them collide with one another. Sherlock turned just in time to spot a bulky, muscled man swinging a carpenter’s hammer right at his face. He managed to drop into a roll and dodge the heavy iron head, but the man swinging it couldn’t possibly stop its momentum: the hammer flew right out of his drunken hands and plowed into the central support beam in the middle of the room.

The was an enormous crack of wood as the beam was struck, sharp enough that Sherlock knew something was dangerously wrong. He watched a massive fracture veining toward the ceiling where the beam acted as a critical point of support for the roof.

“John!” he shouted.

John was grappling with a bloody-nosed man, but whipped his head around when he heard Sherlock’s call. His eyes grew round as he saw it too and, shoving his opponent away, vaulted over to grab hold of the failing wood.

The roof struts shook precariously and John’s muscles went taut as steel as he held the beam in place. The other combatants had begun noticing the structural failure and were stumbling outside to safety, but there were plenty unconscious men on the ground that would be crushed the moment John’s arms gave out.

John’s panicked eyes found Sherlock. “Do something!” he grunted.

The well-oiled gears of Sherlock’s brain began whirring at top speed. Thoughts ricocheted like his father’s own lightning bolts, faster than any mortal could hope to emulate. He saw everything at once; every inch of wood, every angle, every measurement, every bead of sweat inching down John’s nape. There wasn’t enough time for Sherlock to pull everyone to safety. There wasn’t even enough time to--

Sherlock yanked a man to his feet who appeared slightly dazed but otherwise functional. “You! Over there! Break down the rest of that wall!”

“What are you doing?” John called as the drunkard wobbled away to fulfill his orders.

Sherlock ignored the question and caught another lagging patron, pointing him toward a secondary support point. “Take out this strut and the second one there. _Only_ those two!”

He made a circuit of the room, employing those left behind and his own fists to knock out a timber here, loosen a joint there, demolish planking in strategic spots. The entire building groaned and creaked as it weakened.

John collapsed to one knee as his strength waned, clenching his teeth. “Sherlock!”

“Just a minute!” he called, kicking out a strut to a precise degree.

“SHERLOCK!”

“All right! Let go!”

Sherlock leapt over the shambles of a table to get back to John, who released the pillar and ducked down to protect himself from falling debris. Sherlock crouched down beside him, not bothering to cover his head, as he watched the beams and posts give way around them. They crashed and toppled in a wonderfully orchestrated fashion, shaking the ground, and a cloud of dust bloomed around them as the rubble settled.

John carefully raised his head. A strange look graced his face, as he hadn’t felt the expected rain of timber. He glanced around in shock to find that the posts had fallen in perfectly concentric circles, tucked neatly inward like the poles of tent and balancing whole chunks of the split roof. The collapse hadn’t caused harm to anyone beneath, nor to the surrounding buildings despite the utter ruin of a structure in between.

Sherlock scanned John over. “All right?”

John shook his head, struck by utter awe. “You are _unbelievable_.”

“Twenty years is an awfully long time for even perpetual amazement, John.”

His eyes softened and his smile grew infectious. John placed one sweaty, dusty hand on Sherlock’s chest. “Come here,” he murmured, leaning in to find a kiss.

Demigod, they called him. Son of Zeus. Scion of Olympus. The only times he felt those titles and the prestige they carried was when John had him like this. A single man’s pride in him ought not carry such weight, but Sherlock could not help himself. Half of what he did, he did solely for John.

Breaking off the kiss, John sighed and rested their foreheads together. A moment of stillness seemed to descend out of the chaos: just them and the shrouded stars and the scent of woodsmoke in the air.

“Never mind those things they said, yeah?” John whispered. He gently touched Sherlock’s temple. “Don’t let them stick around in there.”

A faint smirk of reassurance tugged at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, but did not reach his eyes. “I never do.”

John regarded him as a man who knew a falsehood for what it was, but saw no reason to expose it. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”

A concerned chorus of voices shortly rose through the night. Sherlock helped John to his feet as astounded villagers appeared through the haze, rushing forward to retrieve the dazed and injured victims of the fight. Sherlock heard his name called, both in reverence and in loathing, as they trudged through the debris and into the town’s pitiful excuse for a main street.

They helped with the cleanup as much as they were able. When the owners came round looking to pinpoint a party to blame, Sherlock’s recent aid with the harpy problem and the testimony of several patrons who’d witnessed the beginning of the fight were enough absolve their actions. Sherlock was just about to suggest to John that they locate a barn belonging to a grateful farmer to bed down for the night when a stir rippled through the crowd gawking at the mess.

A young boy appeared pushing his way through the onlookers, his face set with determination. He wore the royal emblem of Corinth pinned to his tunic and had a lightweight rucksack slung over his back. Recognizing him, Sherlock prodded John to get his attention.

“Message from the king!” the runner boy was shouting, shoving aside sedentary shopkeepers and farmers. “Let me through!”

“Hello, Archie,” John said as the boy stopped before them. “What’s this about a message from Mycroft?”

Archie’s eyes were bright and he was huffing deeply, still winded from his long journey from Corinth. “It’s war, sir! War’s come to Corinth! I’m to bring the king’s half-brother at once.”

John appeared just as puzzled as Sherlock felt. “War?” Sherlock asked. “What are you talking about, Archie? I haven’t heard about anyone moving against Corinth.”

“It’s not just an anyone, sir,” the boy said. “Thousands under the banner of the god of war!”

“Ares, is it?”

“Yes, sir. The god of war sends his compliments. He says you’re to surrender yourself or he’ll sack the city and kill everyone in it. He has an army, sir. The king is surrounded.”

John gave Sherlock a sharp look. “Mycroft wouldn’t summon you just to--”

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “He’s not looking to hand me over. But he does need our help if Ares is involved. Archie, I know you’re tired, but I’ll need to ask for one more run from you tonight. Go see the woman over there. She’s the innkeeper of this, er--” he glanced at the rubble pile. “Well, she’s got the resources to get you a hot meal, and after that I need you to hightail it back to Corinth. Tell Mycroft to expect us shortly and not to do anything moronic in the meantime.”

Archie nodded dutifully and scampered off.

John planted his arms on his waist, posing thoughtfully. “What do you think?”

Sherlock hummed and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “When it comes to Ares, first appearances rarely divulge the true nature of his plans.”

“He’s wanted to destroy you for years,” John reasoned. “I’d say that’s as straightforward as it gets.”

“Destroy me? Yes. Straightforward? Not in the least.”

“You think we’re playing into one of Ares’ traps by going to Mycroft’s aid?”

“Oh, it’s all but assured,” Sherlock said sedately.

John shifted, folding his arms as he considered the distasteful idea of confronting a god again. He shook his head after a moment and heaved a resigned sigh. “You and your half-siblings. I don’t know which is worse: the king on your mother’s side or the rotten half of Olympus on your father’s.”

“Depends on the day, really,” Sherlock lightly mused. “Don’t tell Mycroft, but I rather prefer dealing with him over a vindictive god of war.”

John shrugged. “Toss up, I’d say.”

They smiled at one another, and Sherlock couldn’t help but think upon battles long past and all those yet to come. No matter how John grumbled, he’d be there at Sherlock’s side until the bitter end, whether it be gods or monsters or the return of the Titans themselves. No mortal had as much courage. Not even Irene.

Sherlock clapped him on the shoulder and started off toward the road to Corinth. “Come on, John. If we leave now, the city might still be standing when we arrive.”

With a last wistful glance at the ruined inn and its broken promise of an actual bed, John followed him into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

**S1, Ep02: "Hero's Heart"**

 

It was late afternoon, two days later, that they arrived at Corinth. A great grassy slope patched with woodland snugly encircled the city against the coastline, and when John crested the craggy hilltop overlooking it all he immediately understood the cause for concern. A flotilla of triremes formed a blockade outside the city’s harbor. The ships were too distant for John to discern the symbols adorning their sails, but that wasn’t true of the rest of Ares’ forces.

Encamped in the hillsides were not one but _three_ separate armies: Thracians, Spartans, Thessalonians. Each appeared to be bristling for invasion within their well-ordered camps, but what made matters worse were the scores upon scores of mercenary forces flanking them in support. The mix was unlike anything John had ever seen put to field. Warlords, professional sellswords, poorly provisioned fighters looking to make an easy dinar. Each and every group bore standards marked with a flaming torch and chariot, signifying allegiance to Ares.

Mycroft, for his part, had set up a wedge-shaped forward camp beyond the city walls as a first line of defense for its inhabitants. Enormous earthworks surrounded the encampment, pin-pricked with sharp wooden palisades and lined with rows of hastily-erected tents. Corinthian soldiers milled across the camp like ants, lugging ballistics and carrying supplies and looking generally panicked.

As they studied the scene, the wind off the isthmus sent Sherlock’s dark curls whipping wildly. “What do you think?” he called.

John pursed his lips in consideration. “I think Mycroft’s going to need a miracle.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting,” Sherlock said, and he started off down the stone-laden hillside.

John chuckled as he followed. “Careful with that head of yours, Sherlock. Wouldn’t want it to roll off its pedestal and get lost among the other boulders.”

The blinding rays of dipping sunlight provided excellent cover as they snuck north around enemy lines to reach the Mycroft’s encampment. The soldiers on duty let out cheers of victory when they spotted Sherlock and John on approach, and as they entered the camp and made their way among the battlements and tents and ballistae their following swelled to a mob of ecstatic, chanting Corinthians. John noticed Archie waving excitedly to them from beside one of the many cook fires, mouth stuffed full with flatbread rations.

The procession ended in front of the grandest tent in the entire camp. Hugely expansive and dyed in a splendid variety of vivid colors, it was guarded by sentries bearing the royal emblem of Corinth on their round shields. They nodded respectfully to Sherlock and admitted them both at once.

Inside, Mycroft and his military commanders stood about a war table spread with a marked map of Corinth and the surrounding environs. Mycroft glanced up as he saw his brother enter and quickly gave the other men a gesture of dismissal. “That will be all for now,” Mycroft told them. “See that these plans are attended to with all speed.”

John folded his arms as the commanders brushed past to take their leave. A few eyed him with looks of subtle reproach. No doubt they found his unkempt outfit and lack of a weapon entirely unimpressive, and made all the more befuddling because Mycroft’s did not dismiss him with the rest. John had overheard enough talk to know that he was thought a required accessory if one hoped to gain Sherlock’s compliance. He didn’t know which made him angrier: that it was partially true, or that they believed he could not hold his own among demigods and kings.

A chilly atmosphere seemed to descend over the room as the half-brothers regarded each other; Mycroft plump with the delicate features of an aristocratic life lived indoors, Sherlock lithely muscled and sporting his usual untamed mane of curls.

“Well,” Sherlock said. “Shall I turn myself in to Ares now, or were you going to wait until you’d lulled me into a false sense of safety before kidnapping me and arranging delivery?”

Mycroft’s placid expression broke into one of horrendous affront. “Sherlock, it is the gravest insult imaginable that you would _ever_ suggest I intended to--”

“I’m not actually suggesting it,” Sherlock cut in, smirking. “I simply wished to see you make that ghastly face.”

Agonized recollections of their boyhood years danced plainly through Mycroft’s eyes. John had heard enough stories to know Sherlock was a terror before he left to train at Cheiron’s Academy. Granted, he was a terror during and after, as well, but at least by then he had John to reel him back in.

Mycroft took the high road and looked in John’s direction, offering a cordial nod. “Doing well, are you, John?”

He shrugged. “Depends on how many people are trying to kill me at any given time but, generally speaking, yes.”

“All that physical exertion,” Mycroft said, shivering. “I don’t know how you stand it.”

“Some would argue the greatest joys in life are product of vigorous exertion,” Sherlock hummed. “But I suspect you wouldn’t know much about _that_ , now would you?”

Mycroft huffed primly. “Sherlock, I am _this_ close to tossing you into a cell for the evening. I’m your elder brother and a king on top of--”

“And I’m the son of a god, but what does that matter? You’re still a twat.”

“ _I’m_ not the one who keeps leaving the stone wall in Mummy’s south pasture unfinished.”

“For the gods’ sake, it’s not _my_ fault everyone keeps calling me away on matters of mortal peril! I told her I’d get round to it. If it bothers you that much why don’t _you_ do it?”

“You might have noticed, little brother, that I’m a bit preoccupied with discharging the duties of state. Perhaps if you didn’t spend so much time dawdling about in the countryside with John--”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

John stepped between them, waving his arms. “Hello? Can we come back to reality? The one with the massive bloody army on Corinth’s doorstep?”

They seemed to find reason with John’s argument and backed down from the mounting quarrel, though the brothery animosity did not fade entirely.

“Tell me everything,” Sherlock finally said.

Accepting the offer of diplomacy, Mycroft drifted to the map table and gestured at the markings. “It’s rather simple, really. Three armies and their associated mercenary groups, each outfitted as if they’ve been preparing for months. They appeared three days ago with no forewarning, not a word from our outposts. Practically overnight. Soon after they arrived, emissaries delivered a series of messages claiming origination from the god of war. They contained threats against my person and yours, Sherlock. If I do not produce you and hand you over, it was made painstakingly clear that not a single Corinthian would survive.”

Sherlock’s pale eyes flickered across the map. “What proof do you have that it’s actually Ares?”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow. “Besides the fact that every one of our priests devoted to Ares fell dead in pools of their own hemorrhaging blood? You need only take a look beyond this camp. How could such disparate groups form a united coalition without the intervention of a god?”

Sherlock nodded his agreement with the observation. “He’s influencing the minds of their generals and kings. Driving them to aggression, hostility. Have you tried treating with them?”

“Tried and failed,” Mycroft said. “The heads of our negotiators were returned in baskets.”

“Hang on,” John interjected. “I thought Zeus disallowed the other gods from needlessly slaughtering mortals?”

“But Ares isn’t, is he?” Sherlock said. “It’s the humans doing the killing. It’s possible Ares has spent months, even _years_ , manipulating them to achieve this singular outcome. We are looking at his masterstroke, John. He intends to win outright this time. He wants me dead."

“But you’re Zeus’ own son!” John argued. “How could he permit that?”

John regretted the question the moment it left his lips. He knew better. He’d known better for a long, long time.

Sure as the winter rains, a dark introspection clouded Sherlock’s face. “I don’t presume to know the mind of my father, nor why he does the things he does.”

John knew a thing or two about having an absent father, but his had only been away at war. To have a father who possessed unthinkable power and still chose to neglect his own half-mortal child… how could that child not grow to blame themselves for it?

“Sherlock,” Mycroft quietly urged. “what should we do?”

Sherlock’s eyes were distant. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I need to think.”

Mycroft glanced to John for assistance.

“We’ve been on the road to Corinth for days,” John sighed, “and before that even longer. He ought to rest if he’s going to be of any use.”

“Of course,” Mycroft quickly agreed, as if sleep had not occurred to him as a necessity for someone like Sherlock. “I had quarters arranged from the moment Archie told us you were coming. We’ll reconvene tomorrow and review our options.”

Night had fallen by the time they departed Mycroft’s tent. Corinthian soldiers loitered agitatedly around the dappled glow of cook fires, boiling their evening meals and attempting to forget the dangers outside camp. Curious eyes glanced their way from the gathered men, some peeking out from tents or between weapon racks. John hoped it would bolster their spirits to know Sherlock had come to defend them.

As they followed a young steward to their assigned accommodations, Sherlock stayed unusually silent. His expression was pensive, though not altogether heartening, and as they walked John reached out to lightly touch his arm.

“You all right?” John whispered.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock said.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

The steward turned and gestured to indicate they’d arrived. If Mycroft’s quarters were palatial, the tent before them was cozily opulent. Certainly a significant step up from their normal standards.

John smiled and took Sherlock’s hand. “Come on, then.”

Past the flaps, a brazier bowl steeped with glowing embers warmed the octagonal wood-framed interior. Soft woven carpets layered the ground and the canopied ceiling afforded the space a comfortable, airy feel. There was a black-glossed ceramic ewer and basin for washing. Central of all stood a pallet bed laid out with a set of a plush feather pillows, fresh linen, and furs for the evening chill.

Sherlock’s satisfaction with it all seemed to break through the blackness of his mood. “Well,” he said, surveying the sleeping arrangements. “I promised you a bed, didn’t I?”

The subtle shift in Sherlock’s tone would have gone unnoticed for another living being. John tilted his head slightly as he picked up the change. It verged on playfulness.

“You promised me a bed two days ago,” John said, keeping his face carefully stoic.

Sherlock turned to glance at him. “This _is_ a rather nice one.”

“It is,” John agreed, “but there’s the little problem of interest.”

“Interest?”

John nodded gravely. “Compounding interest. I fear a bed alone just won’t do.”

Warmth spread through Sherlock’s eyes. His cheek creased with the hint of a smile and he gracefully sidled toward John, until they stood only an inch or two apart. One long-fingered hand rustled the fabric of John’s vest. The exposed skin of John’s arms and chest prickled despite the heat radiating through the tent.

Sherlock was a figure of mythic stature among the peoples of the known world. His name meant impossible feats and astounding heroism: defeating the Nemean Lion, journeying with the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece, capturing the Cretan Bull. Yet so few knew the depths of his humanity as a living, loving person, nor how very skilled John had become at reading and exposing it.

“Interest isn’t a problem,” Sherlock rumbled to him pleasantly. “What is it I owe you?”

“Your shirt, to start,” John said.

Sherlock glanced down at the low-cut neckline of the sleeveless garment. The travel-dusted yellow linen appeared almost gold in light of the fire. “My shirt?”

“To start,” John smiled.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow and lifted his arms in offering. “It’s yours.”

John reached around to carefully tugged the shirt over Sherlock’s head, ruffling his curls as it slid past, and dropped it to the floor. He pressed an admiring palm to the warm muscles of Sherlock’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. John had seen those muscles grow firm with training, broaden and change as he matured, until he had become a specimen fit to inspire the greatest Athenian sculptors. Of course, Sherlock had scars now -- they both did -- but each held a precious memory of a battle won side by side.

When John retracted his hand, Sherlock’s breath was no longer so steady.

“I think I’ll have your gauntlets, too,” John said.

Sherlock began untying the leather pieces that wrapped his arms from wrist to elbow. “Forged by Hephaestus himself,” he hummed. “You have excellent taste.”

The silver ornamentation of the craftsman god’s handiwork flashed in the brazier light before joining the shirt in its heap. The gauntlets made Sherlock look bulkier than he was; in reality he was all wiry strength and lean agility, and always pale as moonlight despite the constant beating of the Grecian sun.

John made a show of scrutinizing his half-naked lover. He nodded, finally, as if making up his mind. “Hmm, yes. And the rest.”

Sherlock’s smile had made its full return, bright and achingly sweet. The boots tumbled across the carpets and the leather trousers unclasped, falling away. Sherlock stepped out of the bunched leather, his erection half-hard.

John drank in the perfect lines of him. His own trousers had grown uncomfortably tight. “I said the _rest_ ,” he intoned.

Cheeks flushing, Sherlock blinked and gestured at his nudity. “I’ve nothing left, John.”

John shook his head. “Wrong,” he said, stealing one of Sherlock’s favorite phrases. He came close and wrapped his arms around Sherlock, nuzzling into his neck. “You’ve everything, love.”

Sherlock let out a contented chuckle before John drew his mouth for slow and tender kiss. Broad hands skimmed beneath John’s vest, guiding him forward. Sherlock dropped backward onto the soft fur-lined bedding, pulling John down with him, and as they came together all the gods and kings and armies of the world fell away to nothing.

 

* * *

 

The moon was high between the canopied fronds of the trees, providing ample light for traveling by night, but Molly picked her path with careful aid of her staff. Ahead, Irene led Argo by the bridle, her long dark hair swaying in time with the horse’s braided tail. She’d opted for stealth over the speed of a mount, with a long merchant’s robe concealing her leather breastplate, skirt, and sword. Even Argo was in on the sham, bearing two massive pack bags stuffed with straw. Molly apparently looked ordinary enough in her village-spun wool that she needn’t use a disguise.

“How far is it?” Molly called, half a whisper and half a hiss.

Irene leveled a pointed look over one shoulder and shushed her.

“Irene, we haven’t seen anyone for hours,” Molly complained. “How far is it to Corinth?”

“We’re close. Now keep quiet!”

“Why should I? Merchants talk all the time! Even at night, they talk.”

Irene pulled Argo to a halt and turned. The palomino’s dark eyes seemed to match Irene’s glare.  “Fine,” she said. “You want to get jumped by an illiterate patrolman on his way to take a piss? Go right ahead.”

Molly paraded right up to them and tapped her staff on the ground. “I’m not as green as I used to be, Irene. I know how to handle myself. Maybe you’ve spent too much time at war to remember how real people act.”

Irene grumbled and they started off again.

“I still don’t know why we’re going to Corinth,” Molly prodded.

“I told you,” Irene said. ”I had a dream about it.”

“And I once had a dream that I was named Queen of the Pirates and sailed away on a ship made of rubies. That doesn’t mean I’m going to row around the Aegean until I find one.”

Irene sighed. “Listen, I know you don’t believe in prophecies and signs--”

“I never said that!”

“Then why is it so hard to understand that I had a dream that told me we need to go there?” Irene’s hair fell to one side as she curiously angled her head. “Wait. It’s not the dream, is it? It’s Corinth. Why don’t you like Corinth?”

Molly pulled her stole closer around her shoulders and shrugged. “It’s just it wasn’t so long ago that you were sieging Corinth in the name of conquest.”

“That was years ago. Before I changed. Before Mycroft was named king.”

“But the people of Corinth have memories, Irene. Who’s to say they’ll welcome you?”

“I turned a new leaf. You can vouch for me, and the same goes for any of the hundreds of people we’ve helped over the last two years.”

“Soldiers aren’t going to listen to a no-name bard from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.”

Irene stopped Argo again. Molly felt her friend’s hand reach for hers in the dark. “Molly,” she said. “If anyone can _make_ them listen, it’s you.”

They eventually spotted the hundreds of campfires in the hillsides that Irene had claimed she’d seen in her dream, and Molly’s doubts began to recede. Irene estimated at least thirty thousand soldiers surrounded Corinth in three massive war groups. They pressed on through the woods, protected by Irene’s sense for danger and wise decision to travel by night, and soon the fires they saw in the distance were those of the Corinthian camp.

Fifty yards from the edge of the trees, Irene signaled that they should stop. Molly flexed her grip around the worn wood of her staff and patted Argo’s haunch as Irene crouched to observe the Corinthians. Guards milled the palisades, their torches bright pinpoints that quickly ruined Molly’s night vision. She was about to wonder aloud why they didn’t just walk up -- surely the men on duty would recognize the famed Warrior Princess? -- when a branch snapped loudly behind her.

A man’s hand grabbed Molly round the shoulders, but barely had it touched her when a battle cry trilled through the air and the metal disc of Irene’s chakram came whizzing past Molly’s head, striking her assailant in the face before ricocheting away. Molly spun and twirled her staff, driving the end straight into the man’s stomach for good measure. He collapsed to the ground and Molly made out the shapes of more attackers running toward her. She crouched and readied her staff, just the way Irene had taught her, when the trilling came again and Irene vaulted over Argo, spinning as a dark silhouette in the air, to land directly on two and knock them on their backs. Having done away with her robe, Irene drew her sword from her back and proceeded to demolish the soldiers one by one, a shadow leaping about, accurately kicking and punching as if it were the middle of the day.

Eventually there was only one figure standing amidst the faint groaning of the defeated. There came the sound of a sword being sheathed, and Molly jolted as she felt the reassuring touch of Irene’s hand on her shoulder.

“Are you all right, Molly?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Gods, how did you see them? It’s dark as Tartarus out here!”

“I didn’t,” Irene said.

“But-- how--?”

She got the sense that Irene was leaning close. “If a warrior is only as good as her eyes, then she’s useless for half the day. You can’t allow darkness to stop you. I use my ears, my nose, my sense of touch.”

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

Irene moved to Argo and began rustling about in the real saddlebags beneath the false ones. “Sure. We’ll add it to the training list.”

A torch was struck, casting flickering light over the downed men still writhing on the ground. Irene raised the torch higher. Molly gasped as the light revealed a line of two dozen Corinthian crossbowmen crouched and aiming straight at them.

“Of course, it doesn’t work _all_ the time,” Irene admitted.

They were marched into camp by sword and bow after Irene tried explaining who she was and why they had come sneaking around at a time of war. The soldiers bristled at the invocation of her name, which they still associated with her days as a fearsome warlord rather than the hero she had become. However, none of them knew the Warrior Princess by sight, and so it was after much bullying on Irene’s part that the king himself was summoned from his bed to identify her.

“What in Tartarus are _you_ two doing here?” Mycroft demanded, tapping a slippered foot beneath his evening robes.

“She had a dream,” Molly explained. She shoved away a nearby bow-point aimed at her head. “We’re here to help.”

“A dream,” Mycroft flatly said.

“I know Ares has launched an attack against you,” Irene told him, folding her arms. Despite all the drawn weapons the confiscation of her own, she looked as relaxed as a housecat. “He sent me a dream warning me not to get involved this time. He says he has plans for you and your brother and offered whatever I wished in return for my noninterference.”

Mycroft glanced between them with disapproval. “If you’ve communicated with Ares, as you say, how do I know you are not an agent of his?”

“She’s a hero!” Molly insisted, stepping forward to the creaking of bowstrings. “I think she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Sherlock would say the exact same thing and you know it.”

“I don’t deny the good deeds you’ve performed recently,” Mycroft said with icy precision, “but the fact remains you are a known former associate of the god of war who, on many occasions, acted on his behalf to the detriment of many.”

“She’s different now!” Molly argued. “Do think this is all an act? That she’s manipulated me day and night for over two years? That she’s just biding her time until Ares calls on her?”

“It’s not beyond her abilities,” Mycroft observed.

Irene sighed. “Listen, I’ve got my own scores to settle, and if taking down Ares is in the cards, I want in. If you won’t have us, then we’ll just do it on our own. Come on, Molly.”

Irene pushed past the guardsmen, snatching up her sword and chakram from the man holding them, and Molly followed, taking her staff. She wondered if they were doing the right thing, leaving the Corinthians at the mercy of Ares, and looked uncertainly over at Irene.

Irene winked at her.

A second later: “Wait,” Mycroft called.

They turned. The king had lost a great deal of his haughtiness. He was worried, Molly saw, more than was usual even for a leader of an embattled kingdom. Mycroft deigned to approach them.

“He’s after Sherlock,” Mycroft said with quiet concern. “That’s what this is all about. If there’s anything you can do to prevent that from happening--”

“I know what he’s after,” Irene interrupted. “That’s why we came with such haste. Sherlock did me a favor when he helped me see the error of my ways. Because of him, I began my path toward making amends for all the bloodshed I’ve caused. I know Ares better than any mortal. If you want him stopped, I am your best shot.”

“In that case, I accept your offer of service,” Mycroft said. “Please, you are welcome to lodgings in camp for the night. I’ve arranged a meeting tomorrow to begin planning our counteroffensive. I would be honored if you both would attend.”

Molly and Irene bowed to Mycroft and Mycroft dipped his head in return, just a little, and soon they were off following a sleepy steward through the camp. The hullabaloo had woken a few of the soldiers but the majority remained slumbering on their blanket rolls and within their tents. Those on guard duty eyed Irene warily, spears clenched in hand, and Molly made a point to shoot back an equally judgmental look. She was used the pastoral regions of Greece where any help -- former warlord or not -- was met with unreserved acceptance.

“Don’t worry about them,” Irene said in Molly’s ear. “We can’t win everyone over.”

“It just makes me so angry,” Molly whispered back. “They ought to know you as I do.”

“Hopefully not _that_ well,” Irene hummed. “There are limits to what I’ll do to reclaim my reputation. Those fellows included.”

Molly stifled a giggle. She could feel her face pinking, as tended to happen with Irene’s innuendos, but at least she was getting better about it. Irene smirked pleasantly upon seeing Molly’s embarrassment.

She was musing upon a witty retort when she caught sight of a nude blond man casually walking out from a nearby row of tents with an empty black ewer in one hand.

Molly gasped and grabbed Irene’s arm. “Is that--? John! JOHN!”

Indeed, it was John, because he startled at the sudden sound of his name and froze in his tracks. When he saw the two women and wide-eyed steward staring at him he swiftly lowered the ewer to cover himself.

“Molly!” he yelped in surprise. “Irene? What are you doing here?”

Irene bit back a smirk of her artful red lips. “Same as you and Sherlock, I expect,” she said, eyeing his shielded crotch. “Going by the state of you, he can’t be terribly far.”

Molly saw what she meant. He was recovering from a recent flush and outlined with a sheen of cooling sweat. His skin bore impressions that Molly suspected would match up well with the size and shape of Sherlock’s hands.  

John blinked. “Er, yeah… I was just headed for the well. He’s over there in--”

Irene trotted off toward the tent John had pointed at before he even finished the sentence. Molly mumbled an apology to John and abandoned the poor steward to chase after Irene, whose long-legged strides were quickly closing the distance to her target. Molly called a warning for her to stop out of respect for privacy, but before a word left her mouth Irene barreled straight in between the tent flaps.

Molly followed her inside, of course, and immediately blushed. There Sherlock lay lounging upon a bed spread with assorted furs; a pale nude stripe draped among the dark. There was no rush to cover himself for propriety’s sake, as John had done, and Molly fought to keep her gaze from wandering too far from his face.

Sherlock lazily opened an eye to acknowledge them. “Good evening,” he said.

Irene amusedly planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m glad to see John’s still keeping you satisfied,” she quipped. “Twice, was it?”

“John’s getting overly sentimental in his old age,” Sherlock said, yawning with a stretch. “What is it, Irene? Say what you’ve come to say so I can go to sleep.”

“I’ve come to warn you about--”

“Ares? I’m well aware.”

Frowning at his dismissive tone, Irene picked up one of John’s shed gauntlets from the floor and threw it at Sherlock. It bounced off his shoulder and he opened both eyes with a displeased grunt.

“This isn’t like his usual tricks,” Irene insisted. “He’s got an endgame, Sherlock. He sent me a dream telling me to stay away. He swore he’d burn the heart out of you.”

Sherlock abruptly shot upright in bed. “Say that again?”

All of a sudden, an enormous burst of lightning exploded at the center of the tent. Molly covered her eyes with one hand and when she lowered it back down, there was one more person in their midst than had been there before.

Ares, god of war, made a slight but imposing figure. Black of hair and eye, he wore fine leathers the color of soot, adorned with rows of silver rivets that gave the impression of shining armor. A serpentine smile spread across his face as he surveyed Irene and Sherlock’s shocked expressions.

“Hi there,” Ares said. “Thought I’d drop by since everyone’s arrived.”

Irene grabbed for her sword but the weapon went flying out of its scabbard before she could grab hold, soaring across the room to embed itself into one of the wooden support poles.

“Ah, now, let’s not unnecessarily escalate things, Irene,” Ares scolded. “I’m not here to fight.”

“You can’t fight because you can’t kill them directly,” Molly blurted out. “It’s against the rules set down by Zeus.”

Ares flicked his head to eye Molly with astonished skepticism, as if he hadn’t realized she was standing there until she’d spoken. “Oh, look! One of the pets. How _charming_.” He glanced about inquiringly before settling his gaze on Sherlock. ”Where’s yours, brother mine? Stabled out with the other beasts of burden, I presume?”

A glint of ire quite at odds with Sherlock’s usual calm confidence passed through his eyes at the mention of John.

Ares grimaced at Sherlock’s disheveled state. “Hmm. Keeping him indoors these days, I see. It seems I’ve caught you with your trousers down.”

“What is it you want?” Sherlock demanded.

“You,” he said, quite simply. “Dead, that is, and out of my hair.”

“I’m happy to fight any time it suits you.”

Ares gasped as if grievously insulted. “You mistake me, brother! I don’t want to kill you with my own two hands. I don’t want to pummel you until you’re pulp and throw your remains to Cerberus, and drive Apollo’s chariot over the scraps until they’re mulch. No,” Ares said, crouching close to the bedside as if explaining the simplest concept imaginable to an imbecile. “We’re beyond all that. You’ve thwarted me too many times and in too many ways. I want you to come willingly, Sherlock. I want to see you destroyed by your own conscious choice. Only then will I truly have defeated you. Honor makes for a convenient shield only until the breaking point. And it is my job to break things.”

Sherlock glared at him. “You are spectacularly deluded if you think that will ever happen.”

Ares stood. “Deluded. Yes, I can see how you might see it that way. Shall I repeat what Irene told you before I made myself known? Something I told you long ago, Sherlock. I know you remember it. I swore that I would burn your heart from your body until nothing but ash remains. You have my word on that. And ash is what you will be by the end of our little dance.”

“Not while I’m still standing, Ares,” Irene cut in. “Not on my life.”

The god of war shifted his attention away from Sherlock and turned, sauntering toward Irene in an almost flirtatious manner. “Irene, my dear,” he said. “I cannot say how disappointed I am that you refused my olive branch.”

“Neutrality isn’t my game,” she growled.

Ares shrugged and clasped his arms behind his back. “Such a pity, but then we know what happens when your competitive spirit gets the better of you, don’t we? They say the lamentations of the widows and orphans you created will echo through the underworld for a thousand generations.” He grinned. “I could not be prouder, my darling, no matter how far you might stray.”

“Go to Tartarus,” Irene spat.

“Went there last week, actually. Hades is off on some tiff with Persephone, as usual, but I’m assured there’s room to spare for the newly deceased. Perhaps all of Corinth will do?” Ares spun and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “No, no, no. Let’s work our way up to prime time. Start small, shall we?”

At that moment, a blood-curdling bestial roar reverberated distantly in the night. A shiver rippled up Molly’s spine as the sound hung thick in the air; a bellow belonging to primal fears and long-forgotten nightmares.

“I’ll be watching,” Ares purred. Then he vanished in a dazzling flash of light.

“What was that sound?” Molly asked.

Sherlock closed his eyes and sighed. “Something very large and profoundly angry.”


	3. Chapter 3

**S1, Ep03: "The Gauntlet"**

 

John was in the middle of washing up when the awful sound rose above the camp. He dropped the ewer from his hand, a small stream of water still trickling from the spout. He’d heard plenty of eerie noises in twenty years of adventuring, including the sound Sherlock made when bored out of his mind, but nothing had ever compared to _that_.

It was certainly a sign of trouble, and there he was caught bare-bummed beside the well in the middle of the night like a raw cadet at Cheiron’s Academy. There came confused mutterings and rustlings from the soldiers sleeping in the vicinity and John glanced around, trying to identify the source of the threat.

“John!”

Suddenly his clothes were being thrust in his arms by Sherlock, who himself was dressed in  hastily-tied boots and trousers. He appeared significantly less at ease than when John had left him in their tent.

John gaped at him. “Sherlock, what’s--”

“Come on!” Sherlock urged, already running off toward the palisades.

John followed, hopping and skipping as he pieced together his clothes.

They pushed through the scattering of soldiers collected against the barricade of sharpened stakes. Torches were being lit and the defensive braziers fed so that the brightness of the camp extended toward the tree line. The great branches shifted and shook as though agitated by an unnatural wind. John shaded his eyes against the glare of the fires and peered deep into the forest. Something colossal moved among the trunks, dark as the wood itself, like a living tree. Though no tree had ever made such noise; the low, snuffling grunts of some living, breathing creature, the crack of timber as trees got knocked down, the thuds of mighty movements.

The soldiers gathered began muttering in fright.

“What is it?”

“Is it going to attack?”

“Is it Ares?”

“Ares wouldn’t bother dirtying his hands,” Sherlock said to the men. “This is his doing, though. A greeting from the god of war.”

“How do you know?” John asked.

Sherlock eyed him sedately but did not answer the question. “We need to drive it away before it attacks. Or at least determine what it is in the first place.”

"Over here, boys!" called a sudden forceful voice.

They turned to see the soldiers parting. Irene sat astride Argo, the leather of her skirts and bodice reflecting inky brown in the torchlight. In her hands were the leads of two Corinthian war stallions.

“Shall we?” she asked with a delectable smirk.

Chaos was spreading through the camp as John rushed to find armaments. He lashed a sword belt round his waist and snatched up one bow each for Sherlock and himself to complement the quiver already attached to the horses’ saddles.

Molly met them at the main gate on her own sprightly mare, and together they galloped into the shivering night. It wasn’t difficult to track the progress of the creature, for the earth shook in its wake and the trees thrashed with the felling of trunks. They stayed beyond the tree line, tracing the path of destruction through the stalks and foliage, not willing to risk the horses without knowing what they were up against. John urged his steed alongside a gap in the trees and reined it to a halt before rising on his stirrups and squinting into the night.

The darkness shrouded much of the creature, but John made out the arcing horns of a bull, an enormous wet snout, coarse tufts of hair. But its shoulders were massive and smooth-skinned, its spine erect as it walked on two legs.

John glanced aside as Sherlock and the others pulled up alongside him. “A minotaur?” John asked.

“That’s too big to be a minotaur,” Sherlock said. “It’s at least twenty-five feet.”

“But it’s got a bull’s head on a man’s body,” John observed.

Irene shook her head. “It’s half bull, all right, but the rest isn’t man. It’s half giant.”

“Tartarus take me,” John cursed. “So Ares is just making monsters up now? Is that it?”

“I doubt he created it from scratch,” Sherlock said. “He likely transformed a living giant.”

“Is it still a minotaur, then?”

Molly snorted. “More like a giganto-taur, if you ask me.”

Sherlock gave her a wry smile. “I defer to the bard in naming the beast. Gigantotaur it is.”

“The more pertinent question, I think, is how do we stop it?” Irene intoned.

The crunch and crack of destroyed underbrush filled the silence as Sherlock thought about, his face pensive and his eyes darting about like sparrows in the sky. Something that size could kill countless people before it was stopped, and it was moving steadily toward the Corinthian lines. John didn’t want to imagine the havoc it might wreak on the only thing between Ares’ forces and the people of Corinth.

“John,” Sherlock finally said.

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember when Mycroft called on us to help with the cave-in at the copper mine?”

John blinked. “Yeah. The mining tunnel collapsed and trapped nearly thirty people underground.” He scanned the starry skies and mentally plotted their location. “It couldn’t be more than a league to the east of here.”

“The mine was deemed unstable after the incident and abandoned,” Sherlock told him.

“Are you thinking--”

He nodded. “Lead it there. Get it stuck in the shaft. It need only drop a leg inside.”

John considered the state they’d last seen the mine: a dark hole burrowing deep into the copper vein from a steep angle, rimmed by a lattice of planking the workers used to descend. Any number of the monsters they’d faced would struggle to escape such depths.

John broke out a grin. “You are bloody brilliant. I don’t say that enough.”

Even under moonlight, Sherlock’s cheeks visibly tinged. “You say it all the time, John.”

He leaned toward Sherlock. “Still not enough.”

“There’ll be time for foreplay later,” Irene sighed. “Can we at least take care of the giganto-thing first?”

“Gigantotaur,” Molly corrected.

Irene reined Argo in a tight circle and rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

It took Sherlock a moment to pull his eyes away from John’s mouth. “All right. We need to attract its attention and lead it to the mine. John, I want you to act as the bait. Do whatever you need to do rile it up. Irene, you’re riding backup. If John loses its attention you need to step in. John will show you the way to the mine. Molly, you and I will be on either side, shepherding it as best we can.”

They traded acknowledgements and the four horses split apart in a flurry of hooves and streaming tails. The wind scoured through John’s hair as he snapped the reins of his stallion, haunches picking up speed until they were flying across the grassland in the wake of the monster, with Argo and Irene nipping at their heels.

Some distance ahead, a spindly tree came crashing down from the treeline. John veered his stallion around the splintered wood and swooped into the forest, unsheathing his sword with one hand. The creature was a dark shape overhead as John skimmed in front of one gigantic calf. He struck out, slicing deep into the skin, and sped off through the trees as the creature shrieked in sudden pain.

John turned to glance behind him as his stallion galloped hard through the sparse labyrinth of trees. The moonlight shone on the thick animal hair of the gigantotaur, along the curvature of the horns, and within the deep-set eyes pinned upon John and his horse. John unhooked his bow from the saddle and tugged an arrow from the quiver by his knee. He twisted round and despite the jostling of the horse launched the arrow in a clean arc. It vanished in the dark silhouette of the beast, but a bellow of rage erupted loud between the canopies. The beast sped into a thundering charge, and John turned back round to pick a path toward the mine.

That was when he smelled it: the woody scent of smoke drifting through the trees, thick and potent like that of aged meat. The pounding of the creature’s feet slowed as the aroma grew heavier and puffs of wafting smoke appeared between the trees.

“No! Over here, you gigantic moron!” John shouted, trying to keep its attention. He halted his horse as the bull-headed dimwit forgot its anger and brayed curiously, sniffing in the wind, before stomping off to investigate. In entirely the wrong direction, no less.

But Irene was on its trail. John urged his horse to follow and watched as Irene shot two arrows toward its head. Sherlock and Molly were two shadows gesturing and shouting in the dark, trying their best as well, but the prospect of a tasty meal was apparently too strong for the gigantotaur.

They burst from the trees, and John swore on Tartarus and all its inhabitants when he realized where the smoky smell was coming from. A Corinthian outpost, bright with torchfire, had a smokehouse bleeding a steady stream of mouth-watering scent. As John galloped behind Irene and the beast he watched the inhabitants of the outpost stirred to a flurry at the terrifying sight of an enormous minotaur barreling their way. What’s worse, it appeared that the outpost was a former village not entirely rid of its civilian population; bleary-eyed peasant farmers were emerging from their houses to find out what was the matter with the shouting soldiers.

Despite their efforts, nothing could sway the gigantotaur from its goal. Its towering legs knocked aside the fresh-staked palisades and the creature smashed the smokehouse to pieces with a swipe of its humongous fists. Slabs of drying meat spilled out amongst the wood, and the creature began clawing through the debris to find the morsels.

Irene sat frowning upon Argo just outside the ruined palisade of the outpost. Some of the soldiers were flinging rocks and arrows at the creature, but their projectiles did little as it continued to eat. John rode to her side and they were shortly joined by Sherlock.

“We’ll never kill it with arrows,” John said, breathing hard from his ride. “Its hide is too thick.”

“When it’s finished with the meat it’s going to go after everyone else,” Irene said.

Sherlock pointed to beyond the outpost toward a reserve line of heavy siege weaponry waiting to be called into battle. “The catapults. We’ll hit it with exploding shells while it’s still distracted.”

“No! Don’t!” Molly shouted, reining up beside them. “It’s not it’s fault what Ares did to it! You can’t kill it!”

Sherlock grumbled and looked to John.

“She’s got a point,” John shrugged.

“Fine,” Sherlock said. “Non-lethal methods only.”

“If only we had something to launch at it that would only stun it, not kill it,” John said.

Sherlock stared at him blankly for a long moment. Then his face bloomed with pure epiphany and he spurred his horse forward. “Hold onto that thought,” he called as he dashed away.

“What in in the name of Olympus is he doing?” Molly wondered.

John shrugged and urged his horse forward, watching the scene unfold. He wasn’t entirely sure where Sherlock had got to amid the increasingly panicked population of outpost until he heard the cranking of wood and chain coming from the catapult line. Sherlock was shouting to several soldiers as they drew one great arm backward and locked it into place.

Molly bit her lip worriedly. “I thought he wasn’t going to kill it?”

“He’s won’t,” John said. “I don’t know what he’s--”

The beast lifted its bovine head and roared, shreds of smoked meat hanging from its mouth. It huffed and sniffed as its dark eyes latched onto the scurrying shapes of the people frantically running about the outpost. It roared again, this time in hungered interest, and climbed to its great feet to begin hunting for its next course.

“John, get your weapons ready,” Irene said. “Sorry Molly, but it looks like we’ll have to take it out the old-fashioned way.”

At that moment a resonant _thrum_ filled the air and a chunk of ceramic smashed into the gigantotaur’s head, shattering into a spray of shards. The beast was slightly dazed by this turn of events and staggered around, searching for its aggressor. The soldiers were already cranking back the catapult again under Sherlock’s supervision, his pale eyes watching the beast with superhuman sharpness.

“Come on!” John shouted, and the three of them were off galloping into the fray to help distract the beast. The appearance of three fleet-footed horses caught its attention and it turned round again, swiping low with fat fingers to try and catch one. Irene struck at it where she could with her longsword and Molly batted at its tendons and joints with her staff, while John swerved and dodged past its groping hands, hoping to give Sherlock another opening to launch a projectile.

But even John had to admit that attempting to knock out a half-giant-half-bull with empty pots was probably not going to work, and Sherlock had apparently known this from the beginning because as John shot between the creature’s legs he saw that it was not another round of pottery waiting in the catapult’s scooped bucket, but Sherlock himself.

It seemed John’s maneuver had drawn the gigantotaur to exactly the right spot. Sherlock waved to the soldiers who released the ropes, freeing the catapult arm to snap forward and send Sherlock soaring over John’s head. He’d timed it perfectly, of course, and landed smack dab on the gigantotaur’s sloping head, grabbing onto handfuls of shaggy hair to prevent himself from falling off.

“He’s crazy!” Molly shouted.

“No, he’s Sherlock,” John called back.

John strung an arrow in his bow as the gigantotaur bellowed in outrage and swatted at its own scalp to try and get Sherlock off. Sherlock had found his footing, though, and was crawling over the crown of its head, using the horns as a protective barrier between himself and the fists.

“Molly, clear everyone away!” John said, watching Sherlock’s progress. “Irene, aim for the eyes!”

John loosed two arrows in quick succession, striking the gigantotaur on the cheek and chin. It momentarily stopped swiping at Sherlock, giving him the opportunity to climb down to its hackles. Sherlock gripped the horns on either side of its head and planted his boots against the beast’s nape, wrenching its head to one side. Irene struck it in the nostril with an arrow and it gave a great snort, shaking its head like a wet dog and nearly flinging Sherlock from his perch. The rain of arrows continued flying. Sherlock regained his position and continued twisting the head, his arm muscles taut and a grimace lining his face. The gigantotaur swayed and stumbled in confusion, one moment reaching for John or Irene as they galloped past and the next scrabbling for Sherlock on its neck. Its beastial groans rang hollow in the air, and at last Sherlock caused it to lurch forward into the line of catapults. The gigantotaur collapsed to the ground in a thunderous clamor, crushing the heavy oak beams and entangling itself in the ropes and pulleys.

It rotated as it fell, with Sherlock caught between the back of its head and the sharp appendages of the catapults. John felt his heart launch into his throat as Sherlock vanished beneath the gigantotaur’s bulk; before he knew it he was hurtling out of his saddle and pounding across the hard-packed earth and climbing numbly through the wreckage. The beast was moaning faintly and the wood shifted underneath John’s boots, and all he saw were the spears of splintered wood and metal barbs, praying to an untrustworthy pantheon that Sherlock had survived the fall.

“Sherlock! Gods, answer me! Sherlock!”

Then there was a bit of dark hair and John kept digging, and then a scrap of yellow cloth and Sherlock, the whole beautiful man, wedged in a gap between the beams. He looked up at John with absolute shock on his face, as he usually did when experiencing a slight miscalculation of his plans.

“Oh, thank the gods,” John gasped. He wasted no time in dragging Sherlock out into the open air. They settled on an oak beam together, smoke and dust drifting through the nighttime air around them.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock coughed as John began searching him for signs of injury. “Really, I’m fine.”

John gave him a sharp, reprimanding glare. “You complete idiot! Why do you do this to me?”

“Well, no one got hurt, did they?”

“You could’ve _died_.”

“But I didn’t.”

There wasn’t any sign of blood and nothing seemed out of sorts with him physically. John shook his head and heaved out the breath he hadn’t bothered releasing. “How you survive these things with hardly a scratch, I’ll never know.”

Sherlock smirked. “Demigod, remember?”

 

* * *

 

The morning sun was just rising over the treetops when Mycroft’s royal procession finally showed up.

Sherlock let out a laborious sigh as he watched the careful line of horses snaking its way into the smoking leftovers of the demolished outpost. He sat propped against a catapult wheel beside John, whose soft snoring against his shoulder did little to drown out the markedly louder snoring of the nearby gigantotaur in its lashings.

Irene and Molly were among Mycroft’s party, having returned to the main encampment after Sherlock had volunteered to keep an eye on the beast overnight. He’d spent most of it thinking while John used him as a living pillow.

Sherlock shook him. “John, wake up. We’ve got company.”

The blonde fringe beside him snuffled sleepily and stirred with a great cracking of joints.  “Gods,” John grunted. “You still owe me a bed.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Sherlock said.

John rotated his neck and rubbed at it, wincing. “Preferably before any permanent disfigurement sets in.”

They stood and dusted one another off as the royal procession approached, though a decent presentation wasn’t salvageable in the slightest. Sherlock’s shirt was hopelessly shredded and John looked as though a tree had sneezed flecks of sap all over him.

Mycroft scowled at the gigantic, unconscious minotaur as he dismounted. “It’s safe?” he asked, surveying the twisted lines of pulley rope ensnaring it.

“Safe enough,” John said. “I don’t envy whoever gets to escort it home.”

“Molly was gracious enough to provide her ample thoughts on the matter,” Mycroft delicately said. His eyes shifted toward his frowning commanders, who were observing the disarray of the outpost with horror. “I suppose I should attend to the diplomatic side of your mess. As usual.”

“Hey, we’re not the ones who sent it,” John argued, stabbing a finger toward Mycroft. “Take it up with Ares!”

“Oh, I intend to,” came Irene’s sultry voice. She and Molly were weaving their way toward them. Sherlock noticed that the chakram on Irene’s belt was scrubbed clean and the sword on her back freshly oiled. A desire for vengeance shone in her eyes, while Molly appeared tight-lipped with empathetic indignation. Mycroft eyed Irene suspiciously before lifting his nose to the air and taking his leave.

John folded his arms at Irene. “I’d happily help you deliver a token of our mutual love for Ares if he weren’t, you know, a bloody _god_ hiding out who-knows-where.”

Irene looked at him. “We don’t need to find him. Ares appeared last night.”

John’s arms fell away in surprise. “What? Ares appeared? What did he say?”

“It’s not important,” Sherlock quickly interjected. The other three looked at him, brows furrowing, and Sherlock blinked wildly as he realized the speed of his answer had produced the opposite of his desired effect. “That is,” he went on, “Ares didn’t say anything useful. Just the usual rubbish.”

“Sherlock--” Molly started.

“I said it’s not important,” Sherlock stressed. “Nothing John hasn’t heard.”

John was looking at him strangely. Sherlock kept things from him sometimes, of course, but it was easier to downplay when it was just the two of them. _I will burn the heart out of you_. John didn’t need to hear that.

Irene kicked the enormous shinbone of the sleeping gigantotaur. “Well, if this isn’t a good enough message, I don’t know what is. Ares has made it clear where things stand. He’s playing for keeps and so must we.”

Molly looked shocked. “Irene, you’re not thinking--”

“We’ve got to kill him,” she said, her eyes set distant. “We’ve got to kill a god.”

John frowned. “The only way for a mortal to kill a god is--”

“The blood of a Golden Hind,” Sherlock finished.

“But the Golden Hinds are extinct,” Molly said.

“Barring we run across a weapon forged by Hephaestus or somehow employ the might of Zeus himself, that’s our only option,” Sherlock said. “Fortunately for us, the hinds may be extinct, but that doesn’t mean their blood is gone. There are artifacts in the world that still possess the blood of a hind.”

John’s eyes brightened. “The knife! The knife coated with hind’s blood. It’s supposedly kept at Hera’s temple outside Thebes.”

“And I’ve heard rumors of a pendant containing hind’s blood,” Irene said. “They say it found it’s way into a king’s collection sometime after the last hind was killed.”

“King Magnus of Tantalus,” Sherlock said.

Molly glanced around. “So that’s the plan? We go after the relics?”

“Unless anyone would prefer to rob Hephaestus blind,” Irene dryly said.

Sherlock folded his arms behind his back and began pacing as he considered the problem. “John, you head to Hera’s temple for the knife. Irene and Molly should go as well. That’s Amazon territory and they should be there to negotiate if necessary. I’ll head for Tantalus to bargain with King Magnus. He owes me a favor.”

“All right,” Irene agreed, looking up. “Time is critical so we ought to risk traveling by horse. Three days should be enough to go our respective directions and return. We’ll meet back here in Corinth and decide how to proceed killing Ares from there.”

“Isn’t there any other way?” Molly asked.

“You know better than most that there isn’t,” Irene told her.

Molly nodded her reluctant agreement, and the two of them began picking their way back to their mounts. John stayed behind, his forehead furrowing in concern as he looked at Sherlock.

“Why don’t I go with you?” John suggested. “Irene and Molly can handle themselves.”

“No,” Sherlock said. “You’ll need as many fighting hands as you can get. Tensions with the Amazons are high right now and there’s bound to be resistance. Besides, you grew up in Thebes and know that area best. I’m relying on you to get that knife, John. No matter the difficulties.”

“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” John said.

Sherlock smirked reassuringly at him. “I won’t be alone. This sort of mission requires a… lighter touch than you’re used to, John. It’s not the time for muscle. It’s the time for thievery.”

John sighed. “Lestrade?”

“Lestrade.”


	4. Chapter 4

** S1, Ep04: “The King of Thieves” **

 

“And then he was gone, just like that,” Lady Smallwood said, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes with a scrap of rag. “Gone from the home we built together with that good-for-nothing strumpet!”

Lestrade leaned closer over the candlelit tabletop, humming sympathetically.

“Who would do such a thing?” she went on, sniffling. “I thought I knew the man. After thirty-eight years I thought I knew him.”

Lestrade’s eyes fell to the precious gems glinting at her wrinkled throat before darting back up to meet her gaze. He clasped her hand most tenderly, feeling the smooth metal of her many gold rings against his palms. “My darling Elizabeth,” he said, “you’re too good for him in every possible way.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Lady Smallwood.

“Of course I do. You’re a ravishingly attractive woman. I haven’t the slightest idea what he saw in her.”

“Oh,” she giggled, blushing like she was a maiden again. “Well, you’re not so bad yourself… er, what was it you said your name was?”

“Er, Claustrophobius.” He tilted his head to ensure the shine of the candle flame reflected in his eyes with the proper amount of seductiveness. “Now, what were you saying about your husband leaving the estate to you?”

“Oh, that? Yes, well, he was the largest landowner for twenty leagues, wasn’t he?” She let out a deep, distracted sigh. “Don’t have a clue what I’ll do with it all.”

“I’ve got a few ideas,” Lestrade said.

A deep voice suddenly cut into the conversation. “You’ve always had too many ideas for your own good.”

Lady Smallwood glanced up in surprise and Lestrade felt his debonair smirk slide right off his face. They were seated at a private table in the most exclusive restaurant in the city of Argos, under a falsified name no less, and there stood Sherlock with his arms neatly folded behind his back as if he’d casually stumbled across them at village market. Lady Smallwood recognized him instantly, as people tended to do.

“Gods preserve us, are you Sherlock?” she asked.

“Not sure about the ‘preserve us’ part, but yes,” he said.

“Why didn’t you say you knew the son of Zeus!” Lady Smallwood asked, swatting Lestrade’s arm in mock admonishment. She beamed at Sherlock. “How do you know Claustrophobius here?”

A dark eyebrow rose curiously as Sherlock fought a grin. “Oh, ‘Claustrophobius’ and I go quite a ways back, my lady.”

“And you didn’t mention a thing! Humble as pie, you are, my darling.” She elbowed Sherlock. “Handsome devil, isn’t he?”

“That seems to be the consensus,” Sherlock agreed.

Lady Smallwood rose from her seat. “Perhaps I should allow you two to catch up.”

Lestrade’s hand shot out to prevent her from leaving. “No need to trouble yourself, Elizabeth dear! I’m sure Sherlock was just passing through to say hello.” He eyed the demigod critically. “ _Weren’t_ you?”

“Not really, no,” Sherlock shrugged. “I’ve come about a matter of pressing importance.”

She pet Lestrade’s cheek in farewell. “How about you call again when your business is finished. I’ll be waiting, my handsome silver fox.”

And with that Lestrade watched her leave, wearing baubles worth more money than he’d seen in the last six months combined.

Sherlock sat down across from him. “Slumming it a bit these days, are we?”

Lestrade eased back with one arm over his chair. “I may be shameless, but can you blame me? The older ones are such easy pickings.”

“Is that so?” Sherlock chuckled. “I have unfortunate news that Lady Smallwood wasn’t fooled for a second. She’s a rich old woman with more time and money than she knows what to do with, and she’s more than happy to let a few pieces of silver go missing if it means luring you into her bed. What sob story did she tell you? That her husband ran off with a preteen looker?”

Lestrade covered his face in his hands and groaned.

“I’m afraid he’s been dead for some time. A heart condition, brought on by a diet of fatty meats and little regard for exercise. ”

Lestrade clapped his hands on the table. “All right, what is it?”

“What’s what?” Sherlock asked, far too innocently.

“The job. What’s the job? You might as well tell me if you’re going to sit here and rain on my parade.”

A smile crept across Sherlock’s lips. “King Magnus.”

“Of Tantalus?”

“The very same.”

Eyes widening, Lestrade shifted to the edge of his seat. “Oh, now there’s a nut needs cracking. What’s the take?”

“A necklace strung with a gold pendant about this big,” Sherlock said, creating a circle the size of an orange with his fingers. “In the center is a vial of hind’s blood.”

“And what’s _my_ take?”

“I suppose it’s whatever you can carry out with you. I’m only after the pendant.”

Lestrade scratched at his stubbly chin and thought it over. “King Magnus, eh? His collection is legendary. Half the gentleman thieves in Greece would give their left hand just to glimpse inside his vault. You’re sure he has what you’re looking for?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I gave it to him.”

“Sorry?”

Sherlock glanced around awkwardly, as if he didn’t quite know how to answer. “I let him have the pendant in exchange for… well, it doesn’t matter now. The point is he knows me, and he knows he owes me. He’ll never bargain away something so rare, but the pretense is more than enough to get us inside his castle keep.”

Lestrade shook his head. “You’re a crazy bastard.”

“Too crazy for an enterprising man such as yourself?”

“Oh, I didn’t say _that_ ,” Lestrade intoned. He glanced around to see if he’d missed a certain short, blond, angry fellow. “Why isn’t John here? You’re usually joined at the hip.”

“It’s not the hip we’re joined,” Sherlock muttered to himself.

“Doesn’t John normally run backup for you?”

Sherlock gave him a frosty, level look. “I wouldn’t be dealing with King Magnus if it weren’t an absolute necessity, Lestrade. He’s a fiend. He sniffs out your weaknesses like a hound a hare and exploits them mercilessly.”

Lestrade blinked briefly, and then he understood. The last thing Sherlock wanted was for Magnus to know about John.

“Sounds like a grand adventure,” Lestrade lightly said. “More so than seducing widows, at any rate. Count me in.”

 

* * *

 

The road to Thebes was not as John had expected. The tense several hours slipping away from Corinth had started as cautious walking, then brisk riding, then trudging as the horses required rest. People they passed were sparse and skittish in the Corinthian region, and in a strange sort of symmetry they discovered that the people coming from Thebes acted very much the same.

Word of what was happening in Corinth had spread, of course, but the Thebans had their own troubles to deal with; rumors were circulating that the Amazons were on the move, on the warpath, on the hunt. No one seemed entirely sure what it was they were doing, or whom against, but they all agreed it wasn’t a good sign.

“It isn’t far to the temple,” Molly said as the led their horses past a merchant’s cart hurrying down the forest-lined road, loose wares falling off unnoticed. “It borders Amazonian territory. We may need to negotiate for entrance. Tribes don’t usually make everyone so jittery.”

“Will they allow me through?” John asked.

“They should,” Irene said from the other side of Argo. “They don’t have anything against men. It’s just a preference to live within their own society.”

John watched a crowd of peasants trudge past with their meager belongings strapped to their backs. “You’ve spent time with the Amazons, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Irene said.

Her concise answer seemed an advisement not to intrude on a space meant solely for women. John had run into Amazons before, with Sherlock, and he’d always come away impressed by their discipline and resolve. Few warrior castes were as ruthless in their training, nor as strict in their ritualized requirement to give up their male children in favor of raising the females.

A small shrine on the side of the road marked the branch of path that lead to Hera’s temple. They departed the hard-packed road in favor of the loose, twisting route. The brush here was thicker and overgrown. John squinted between the fronds for a glimpse of the song thrushes trilling amongst the trees.

“Have any good stories, John?” Molly inquired as the trundling noises of the Theban road was lost to the wood.

John furrowed his brow. “Stories?”

“A bard’s always looking for new ones.”

“I think I’ve told you all my interesting stories. Sherlock’s too, but I’m happy to tell you whatever you’d like to hear.”

Molly looked pensive for a short time as they walked, until her warm brown eyes rose in curiosity. “Did you know? When you met him?”

John frowned. “Know what?”

“That you would be-- you know. How you are.”

It was an odd question, and one that John couldn’t recall being asked before. He tended to take his relationship with Sherlock for what it was in the moment, without consideration of a beginning or an end. It was certainly enough for the both of them.

“I’d been at the academy a few years already when Sherlock came,” John said. “And no, I didn’t know. Not for a while.”

“When was it?”

John smiled. “I was assigned to spar with him. He was scrawny but, gods, he was already gorgeous. He deduced what I thought of him, of course, and became determined to knock me on my arse, which he did the first time round. He was all cleverness, you see, but he had no discipline. Once I worked him out he was easy enough to counter. Sherlock didn’t like that. He demanded to fight me every day until he could beat me. That didn’t happen for another year and a half. And afterward... well. I like to think of that day as the start. If you asked Sherlock, he’d probably disagree and say it was about a week later.”

“What happened a week later?”

“I broke his bunkmate’s nose one morning after he called Sherlock a weirdo.”

“And you’ve been breaking bones in his name ever since.”

John shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with him. He may be different, but he’s a special sort. It boils my blood when people can’t see it.”

There came a scratching as of something sharp. John glanced over to see Molly holding a strip of rolled parchment and jotting on it with a small quill pen.

“What-- are you writing this down?” John protested.

“It’s my job to chronicle the lives of heroes,” Molly told him, tucking away the pen in a saddle pocket. “Preserves their humanity, I think.”

John grumbled and returned his eyes to the overgrown path.

It so happened he was just in time to witness spear-points suddenly jut from the underbrush. John startled backward and a chorus of feminine howls rose up. An encirclement of women pushed through the leaves, their hands gripped tight about the spear hafts, each of their finely muscled bodies garbed in battle leathers. John lifted his arms to display that he was unarmed as the Amazons closed in around them.

“No need to show off,” Irene drolly said, her arms raised as well.

“Who are you? Why are you trespassing here?” demanded one of the Amazons. Her thick dark braids were ornamented with beads and gathered about her shoulders. She motioned to her companions as she spoke, who swiftly moved forward to take the weapons attached to their saddlebags.

“What, we can’t walk to a public temple?” Irene asked. “Or has your tribe annexed that now?”

“We’d like to speak with your queen,” Molly added.

The braided Amazon eyed them with suspicion. “You’ll come, but as our prisoners.”

A spear head poked John between the shoulder blades, urging him forward. Another hundred feet and the brush line retreated to reveal the tiered, monolithic structure of a temple impressed upon the skyline. The worn stone edifice was laced over with climbing vines and grey-green mosses. Great stairs led upward to broad promenade circumnavigating the temple proper and lit braziers anchored the arching doorways, which were manned by Amazons wielding blades and bows. There wasn’t a robed priest in sight; the temple seemed to be overtaken by the warrior women.

“Well, at least we’ve found the temple of Hera,” John said.

“Look at the ground,” Irene muttered, earning her an impatient knock from the Amazon escorting her.

Irene was right. What looked to once have been tranquil temple meadows were torn into great furrows and pock-holes of raw earth. Broken hafts littered the field between splintered remains of hastily assembled criss-crossed barricades. Smoke rose from somewhere inside the temple walls. Imprints of woven sandals and heavy hooves were scattered in the mud.

It looked as if the Amazons had fended off a massive, mounted force. Except John didn’t see any dead or dying horses lying among the field of battle, and the hoof prints showed features uncharacteristic of horse-sign. That left only one possibility.

“Centaurs?” John abruptly announced.

The braided Amazon turned to glare at him over her shoulder.

The band of armed women ushered them up the temple stair and through a pair of grand doors, pushed open by the attendant Amazon guards. Inside were the majority of the Amazonians: beautiful women of every description using the altars for beds and the idols for lounging against, and ripping down the decorative drapings for use in washing wounds. A great many of the Amazons seemed to be wounded, in fact. The battle was not long over.

At the head of the temple, where the primary offerings to Hera were left, stood a mature woman. She was dressed much as the other Amazons, if a bit greyer about the temples, save for a raiment of feathers cloaking her shoulders. She watched the prisoners on approach, and John recognized instantly the intractable, weary gaze of a veteran fighter.

“Queen Cyane,” said the braided Amazon, bowing before her. “We bring centaur spies.”

The queen’s ochre eyes swept over the prisoners. “They’re not spies, Lira,” she said plainly. “This is Irene and Molly. They’re our sisters.”

“Sisters?” Lira said, confused. “And what of the man?”

“What of me?” John challenged. “Is it a crime to be male in your presence?”

“You are in Amazon territory and under Amazon jurisdiction,” Cyane sharply told him. “You have no rights here until we say otherwise.”

“He’s all right,” Irene said. “He’s a friend.”

The queen bowed her head. “Welcome, then. Apologies for the overzealous nature of our precautions, but as you have probably seen, we cannot be too careful.”

“What happened here?” Molly asked.

“War, of course,” she said. “The same ancient conflict that has besieged the Amazon nation since before the time of our mothers’ mothers.”

“The Amazons and centaurs have held the peace in this region for decades now,” Irene observed. “What changed?”

Cyane narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean? Nothing changed, including all the slights and offenses and raids we’ve dealt with since those savage creatures invaded these lands. With the last attack our tribe was decimated. We were forced to retreat into Hera’s care here at the temple. She blesses us with provisions and shelter. We would gladly accept aid from a sister-in-arms as accomplished as the Warrior Princess.”

“We’re here first and foremost for the dagger,” Irene told her.

“Dagger?” Cyane asked uncomprehendingly. “What dagger?”

Shocked silence took them for a few moments. John felt his hopes for a speedy trip disintegrate inside him.

“It’s a relic of the temple here,” Irene urged, as if saying it emphatically enough would make the queen remember. “You must’ve seen it. The blade is covered in the blood of a golden hind.”

“I have not encountered such an item,” Cyane said. “You are welcome to question my sisters, if you wish.”

Irene clenched her jaw, frustrated. “Thank you. As soon as we find the dagger, we will help you in whatever way we can.”

“Do you believe her?” John asked as soon as he, Irene, and Molly had stepped away.

“Yes,” Irene said. “Cyane may be a rigid leader, but she’s an honest one.”

Molly shook her head. “This whole situation doesn’t feel right.”

“Ares is stirring the hatred in their hearts,” Irene agreed. “Old tensions are flaring. I’d bet my sword hand on it. Let’s ask around. The sooner we find the dagger, the sooner we can kill Ares and solve everyone’s problems.”

The split apart to begin their task, with Irene moving to question the other Amazon leaders in the vicinity of the queen and Molly drifting toward the injured parties. John turned to take stock of the remaining ladies, but he immediately realized his baser instincts were going to provide a disadvantage of distraction.

It was like some sort of dream come to life, being stuck in a temple with hundreds of gorgeous, unattached women. Their leather armor was revealing in all the best possible ways, showcasing slim figures and muscular legs and enough collarbones to give a man a heart attack. Long hair, short hair, red, brown, blonde, and black. Skin ranging from pale as snow to dark as coal. John felt his mouth go dry and his hands go clammy as he watched them, and he had to shift his stance so that his trousers weren’t quite so confining.

He was struck with a sudden, strange desire for Sherlock to be there. Not that Sherlock would enjoy being surrounded by all those scantily-clad women. Or even if they were men, actually. No, Sherlock wouldn’t be too keen with either scenario. John simply wanted him there.

“Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact,” Molly’s voice gravely advised.

John blinked out of his stupor and looked at her. “Why not?”

“They’ll think you’re interested.”

“I _am_ interested.”

Molly raised a skeptical eyebrow and brushed past him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It wasn’t as if _all_ the Amazons preferred the company of other women. There were plenty of stories of Amazons stealing out of their camps in the middle of the night to find village men. John was a hero who’d fought monsters that made common soldiers quake in their boots, and he could pull any Amazon he damn well pleased.

John’s gaze caught on a woman with long, dark hair tied back with a leather thong, the curly ends swaying as she leaned on her longbow and talked with a group of her sisters. She was quite tall for a woman, with flawless marble skin and the most incredible silvery-blue eyes. After a time her companions noticed John staring and whispered to her, nodding in his direction. She turned and smiled at John, the taut angles around her mouth creating even more definition in her high cheekbones.

The dark-haired Amazon handed her bow to one of her sisters and strode confidently toward John. His heart thudded expectantly inside his chest and he straightened his spine, trying to match the boldness shown in her step.

When she got close he opened his mouth to say something charming, but before he could speak a word she thrust a hand toward his trousers and grabbed him forcefully by the crotch. John yelped.

“You look to be a virile one,” she said, squeezing him through the leather as one might judge the quality of livestock. “Care to seed the next generation of Amazonian warriors?”

It was a bit more forward that John had imagined the conversation to go. He plied her hand off his crotch and pushed it away. An offer for what would probably be rough and domineering sex with a beautiful woman was hardly unwelcome, but the prospect of intentionally fathering a child with a stranger put a significant damper on things.  

“Ah, perhaps another time,” John said.

The Amazon snorted with disdain. “My womb does not wait on the fickleness of men.”

“Say, have you seen a dagger around here?” John said, ignoring the burning in his cheeks. “About this long. Covered in dried blood. It was kept here by the priesthood of Hera.”

“I don’t know anything about a dirty old dagger,” she said. “I stick to swords and bows. Daggers are a coward’s weapon. If you seek a worthy weapon, it seems your companion has found the only one worth mentioning.”

John turned to look where she had pointed. Irene was near the prime alter and pointing animatedly at something upon the dais as she argued with the Amazon leaders. Before John could discern the situation, the stones beneath his boots suddenly began to vibrate.

The thunder of hooves and echo of deep-chested shouts rose up beyond the temple walls. The Amazons all around jumped to attention, grabbing spears and bows and swords from where they lay resting. Shrill Amazon war cries announced the onset of another wave of centaur attack.

“Hera help us,” whispered the dark-haired Amazon beside John.

John spun as the armed warriors rushed past him. He vaulted toward Irene, and as he reached the altar he realized what she was gesturing at.

An intricately-worked silver spear and matching shield gleamed high on the dais. It was a central place of honor, the sort of place John imagined the bloody dagger might have been when the priests still attended Hera’s temple.

“What’s that?” Irene was demanding.

The Amazon standing before her saluted with a fist to her chest. “The spear and aegis of Athena, princess.”

“Why isn’t anyone using them?”

“The weapons of the gods are to be revered,” the Amazon explained. “These were used by Athena herself in battle. We are under strict orders not to defile such sacred treasures.”

Irene planted her fists on her hips. “It seems to me like the weapons of Athena are just what you need to end this fight for good.”

“Wait,” Molly said worriedly. “Irene, what are weapons belonging to Athena doing in Hera’s temple?”

Irene scowled at her. “Don’t you see, Molly? These were forged by Hephaestus. We don’t need the dagger if we’ve got these. What better way to put an end to one god of war than by invoking another?”

“Irene, relics of Olympus aren’t trifles,” John said. “Believe me, I’ve learned that the hard way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Athena came looking for--”

But Irene ignored their protests, grasping the spear in one hand and the shield in the other. As she pulled them from the dais, the very air seemed to thrum with the power of gods. Irene twirled the spear, testing the balance, and hefted the shield to gauge its weight.

The heat of battle glowed within her eyes. “Open the temple doors,” Irene said, “and I’ll finish this fight.”

 

* * *

 

There was something terribly unsettling about the way King Magnus looked at other people. It was undeniably the reason why the courtiers of the royal fortress of Tantalus all trained their eyes upon the ground, as if ashamed by some secret. Even the king’s own advisors seemed determined to stare anywhere but their liege as Sherlock and Lestrade stood within the grand audience chamber.

“I am always happy to welcome one as legendary as yourself,” King Magnus said from his seat upon the throne, his voice soft as a whisper of steel across Sherlock’s ears. His pale, watery eyes flicked methodically between the two travel-stained visitors. “A pity, Sherlock, that you did not bring with you the companion I’ve heard so much about.”

Sherlock rose from his gracious bow, ready with his answer. “I travel with others only when convenience strikes,” he lied. “I’m afraid it’s not nearly as often as rumor would have it.”

The king hummed thoughtfully and set his gaze upon Lestrade. “I do not believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

“Er, Lestrade, your worship,” replied Lestrade, the uncertainty alive in his well-practiced tone.

“And do you travel often with our beloved Sherlock?”

“Only when I can get decent wages out of him, your worship.”

The corners of King’s Magnus’ eyes crinkled in brief scrutiny. After a moment he refocused his attention on Sherlock, having apparently deemed Lestrade unimportant. “And what brings you to Tantalus?” he said.

“A favor, your grace,” Sherlock said. “My brother’s kingdom is under siege.”

He brushed at the thin beard clinging to his chin. “Your brother’s kingdom, you say? Yes, my messengers have brought word of Corinth’s troubles. I fail to see how anything I could provide might avert a city-state’s destruction. Tantalus does not trade in weapons of war.”

“Tantalus trades in weaponry of a different sort,” Sherlock said. “I am in need of an item I gave to you some time ago.”

“An item you gave me?” the king asked, appearing perplexed. He turned to his advisors beside the throne and they began whispering amongst themselves, as if attempting to deduce what Sherlock meant.

“It’s a diverting tactic,” Lestrade muttered in Sherlock’s ear. “I’d swear on Cerberus’ arse he knows exactly where that pendant is at this very moment.”

“Ah, yes,” Magnus announced at last. “The necklace. You’ll forgive me, Sherlock, for not remembering. My collection is vast and contains mementos from any number of noteworthy figures.”

“You have it, then?” Sherlock asked.

“Perhaps,” the king allowed. “I feel for your brother’s predicament, but such a necklace is unique and I could not part with it lightly.”

“But you’re willing to negotiate?”

Magnus studied them for a moment before smiling most disturbingly. “I trust you are both weary? I invite you to rest as guests of the court. Tomorrow we may discuss the particulars of what might entice me.”

They were shown through the fortress halls to a set of sumptuous guest apartments. As soon as they were alone Lestrade removed his cloak and checked the knives hidden in his jerkin as Sherlock twirled about, scanning the room for any signs of spyholes.

“He’s a right rich bastard,” Lestrade said, flipping a honed blade from his sleeve and sliding it back in. “On the way in, did you see the--”

“The passage to the undercroft?” Sherlock interrupted, distractedly pressing his steepled fingers to his lips as he examined the ceiling. “Yes. There were too many guards present for a mere wine cellar or larder. At least half the patrolmen we encountered elsewhere had distinctive brown dust on their boots from the old brickwork. Magnus employs multiple shifts of guards throughout the day. If his collection is anywhere, including the pendant, it’s down there.”

Lestrade nodded. “The only question remaining is how do we get in?”

“We’ll do it tonight,” Sherlock said. “Before we left the village I located the merchant who supplies the common red wine for the guards’ table. I managed to slip a strong dosage of dreamroot into this evening’s shipment. They’ll drink it all evening and be unconscious by midnight.”

“See, this is why I enjoy working with you,” Lestrade mused. “You take care of all the difficult stuff and I get away scot-free.”

“There is yet one major task. The master key. That’s where you come in, Lestrade.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s either on King Magnus’ person or in his private chambers. If I were a betting man, I’d say he’s too paranoid to leave it anywhere but in his own pocket.”

Lestrade’s face fell. “How am I supposed to get close enough to nick it?”

“The good news is Magnus already thinks you’re irrelevant, Lestrade, so you needn’t worry about the opportunity. It will come. Just be ready.” Sherlock eyed him critically. “And try to look meek, would you? You’re supposed to be my unassuming servant. ”

“Hold on, now,” Lestrade said with a wave of a hand. “Let’s not completely abandon the realm of plausibility here. Have you seen this face?”

“More often than I care to think about. Now help me rearrange this furniture.”

The night wore on as they waited in the apartments. Sherlock would not allow Lestrade to leave to scout the fortress and consequently he grew more agitated by the hour at being left in the dark. Finally, well after sundown, the expected knock came at the chamber door.

“Come in,” Sherlock called, ensuring that he looked suitably relaxed in one of the tapered armchairs situated beside the balcony. He nodded at Lestrade, who bowed his back and drew his servants’ cloak about himself, managing a remarkable facade of humility despite his earlier protestations.

The doors creaked open, and in strode King Magnus with his royal honor guard. Sherlock gazed calmly at them as they filled the room.

“Lestrade, leave us,” Sherlock ordered.

Lestrade dipped his head in acquiescence and, because of the tight quarters presented by the new arrangement of the tables and chairs and other furniture, was forced to pass within a few inches of the king’s personage to get by. Lestrade tripped over the carpet as he did so and stumbled into King Magnus, knocking him off his feet. The guards swiftly attended to their king and as Lestrade righted himself, he murmured his everlasting apologies and dashed out of the room, as if from embarrassment.

Sherlock, however, had caught Lestrade’s infinitesimally tiny expression of triumph when he’d landed on the king. It meant the key was present within his robes and Lestrade, owner of the fastest hands in Greece, had taken his prize and escaped without a second thought from Magnus. It now rested with Sherlock to deal with the king as quickly as possible so that he might join Lestrade in reaching the vault.

Neurotic men like Magnus kept odd hours, and from experience Sherlock knew he preferred dealing with others privately where possible. The unfortunate side effect was that such meetings were inherently dangerous to those not vigilant enough to guard themselves. Magnus could turn even the smallest paper cut into a gaping laceration.

Sherlock rose from his seat. “Please forgive Lestrade, your grace. He’s still a bit uncomfortable in the presence of royalty.”

“Does he not consider you yourself to be royal?” King Magnus softly hummed.

“My brother is royalty only by election, and I would not consider a half-Olympian lineage royal in the slightest. If demigods were considered kings in their own right, what hope would there be for the mortal sort?”

The made Magnus laugh, and the sound of it crawled over Sherlock’s skin like ants. “Clever, clever Sherlock.” The king’s thin face cracked with the beginnings of a smile. “You were wise not to bring him, you know.”

Sherlock kept his face tranquil. “Pardon?”

Magnus raised his brow in candid appraisal. “You were wise not to bring John.”

Something constricted deep in Sherlock’s chest. The way Magnus said John’s name.... with all the emotion of a lifeless stone, and yet it sounded a dirty, hateful thing on his lips. Sherlock wished dearly to break his jaw right there and prevent him from ever saying it again.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Sherlock said instead.

“John? About this tall, blond, likes to wear purple. Follows you around like a puppy. Your ‘warrior-companion’, as my sources tell me you call him. He’s a bit more than that, though, isn’t he? Warriors have strengthened their bonds through coupling since the dawn of time. But this, now. This is something else _entirely_.”

He’d prepared for this. He’d planned for these words, and yet they still stung like needles in his eyes. Sherlock kept his jaw clamped and his breathing level. It was all too easy to follow John’s example and let passion get the better of him. He was the son of the king of the gods, and he could handle any brand of psychological warfare.

Magnus blinked calmly and leaned inward, lowering his voice as if passing a secret. “Does it still hurt that he pleasures himself with others? That he does not restrict himself as you do for him? Does he even know about your monogamy?”

Sherlock’s mind railed immediately that his mouth needed to stay shut. There was nothing to be gained in even acknowledging the question. Every possible answer provided more information than he could bear for Magnus’ to know, and yet--

“John is a grown man,” Sherlock heard himself say, “and free to find partners wherever he likes."

Magnus’ eyes brightened gleefully. “There he is. That petulant, hurt, abandoned boy at last appears.”

Sherlock’s fists shook at his side. He stared Magnus down, refusing to blink, lest the slightest move cause him to dismantle the cruel, repugnant man who dared think himself worthy of even breathing John’s name.

“No matter,” Magnus finally said after he’d taken his fill of watching Sherlock seethe. He pulled away, returning to his unnatural serenity. “Keep John away all you like. There are other ways to get what I want.”

“And what is it that you want?” Sherlock bit out.

Magnus shrugged. “When Corinth falls, who will be there to pick up the pieces? Who stands ready to step into the vacant throne and rebuild in the memory of all that was lost?”

Sherlock snorted. “You think to make yourself an emperor.”

“The wheels are already set in motion, dearest Sherlock. There is no escaping what Olympus has wrought. Look at you. You haven’t a clue that even now, you are powerless.”

“I’m not the one that sits atop a hollow throne,” Sherlock spat back. “This fabled ‘collection’ that no one’s ever seen. Halls of gold and jewels and relics from every fallen empire. I don’t think it exists. I think you’re a fraud who rules _from_ fear and _by_ fear.”

Magnus was unruffled as he rejoined his stoical set of honor guards. “You try at ruthlessness,” he lamented, “but I’m afraid you’re not cut out for such things, Sherlock. I look forward to learning tomorrow what lengths you will go to save your brother. I know what it is you need, and why. Our negotiations should prove most enlightening.”

When the door thudded shut behind them and left Sherlock alone in the apartments, he had to spend a few moments with his face buried in his hands, piecing his fractured defenses back together. He took a long breath, after, and lifted his head, ready to finish the task he’d set himself.

It was late as he raced down the fortress halls. The guards he passed were slumped dozing at their posts, barely coherent, and it did not take long for Sherlock to navigate his way unnoticed toward the lower depths of the keep. But as he careened around a corner, he ran directly into a wide-eyed Lestrade.

“Sherlock! Thank the gods,” Lestrade huffed. “I don’t know what to make of this.”

The guards at the entrance to the undercroft were sitting fast asleep against the walls, spears dangling from their gloved hands. Sherlock followed Lestrade down the stairs and through the heavy oak door, the iron key Lestrade had nicked still wedged into the open lock.

There was no vast hall of treasure behind the door. Instead, it was small yet comfortable cell, and inside was a woman. She had long brown hair and dark eyes and wore a simple linen shift, and stood nervously clutching one arm in apparent fright.

“Are you here to help me?” she asked. “Lestrade said you would help me.”

Sherlock gaped at Lestrade. “Who’s this?”

“This is Janine,” Lestrade said. “Why the bloody hell they’ve locked a woman up like King Midas’ trove, I haven’t the faintest.”

Sherlock shook his head in puzzlement. “Janine, how long have you been in here?”

“I’m-- I’m not sure,” she admitted. “A long time.”

“Is there a pendant here? Gold, with a red vial in the middle.”

“I don’t think so,” Janine said.

“You said it would be in here,” Lestrade said. “Why isn’t it bloody in here?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock hissed. He rubbed at his temples and demanded his brain to think harder. “This is the most logical… I don’t _know_.”

Pounding footsteps echoed down the stone halls of the fortress. Sherlock and Lestrade glanced up, all too aware that their window of opportunity was shrinking fast.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Sherlock said. “ _Now_.”

“Come on!” Lestrade said, grabbing Janine by the arm.

There was a shudder of light as soon as Lestrade touched her, and suddenly Janine’s human self was replaced with something else entirely. At first Sherlock thought it was a centaur, but it was too small. It appeared as a woman on top with the body of a deer down below, and from head to hoof it was covered in a soft, pale yellow-brown fur. She wore a woven bodice decorated with golden bangles that sparkled in the light of the wall torches. Janine glanced up at Sherlock with enormous, fearful eyes behind a fall of matted blond hair.

“Oh, Tartarus," Lestrade cursed, releasing her at once. “He doesn’t have the pendant at all. He’s got _the last bloody Golden Hind_.”

The delay proved to be their undoing, for in short order King Magnus and his guards appeared, weapons drawn, to surround them at the vault entrance. Sherlock and Lestrade raised their arms in submission. Beside them, Janine tentatively mimicked the movement.

Magnus nodded to his chief guard. “I think a change of quarters for our guests is in order, captain. Take them to the dungeons.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are new tags. Please read the tags!

**S1, Ep05: "Cast a Giant Shadow"**

 

Lestrade watched as Sherlock picked up a rotten bone from the floor and dragged it across the bars of their prison cell. The metal clanged loudly, echoing against the moisture-ridden stone walls of the lowest part of Tantalus keep.

“Cut it out down there!” a guard called from up the dark tunnel that held a flight of stairs. In the dimness their jailers were naught but shadowy figures patrolling the dryer, more pleasant-smelling corridors above.

Sherlock examined the bone critically for a moment before tossing it away.

“I hope that wasn’t human,” Lestrade frowned. He was lounged on the hard stone bench of their cell, legs crossed and arms folded behind his head. He’d spent time in dungeons less comfortable than this, but only barely, and he knew from experience that hands made for a preferable pillow to coarse bedrock.

“Rat, I think,” Sherlock hummed. “A very large rat.”

“Gods, don’t tell me we’ve got to keep an eye out for gigantic vermin, now.”

“You may change your tune. A rat is a fine meal for a starving prisoner.”

“Do you intend to stay here that long?” Lestrade inquired. “Because I certainly don’t. The widows of Argos are looking significantly more inviting if this is your idea of a good time.”

Sherlock turned away, one hand pensively stroking his chin. “A Golden Hind,” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

He looked up. “I’m just thinking. Magnus had a Golden Hind this whole time. Why?”

“Probably the same reason we want that pendant. Insurance against the ne’er-do-wells of Olympus.” Lestrade shrugged. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a question. Why did she turn into that… thing?”

Sherlock was bending to sift through a rubbish pile in one corner. “Hmm?”

“She was a normal human woman and then she… wasn’t.”

“You touched her,” Sherlock explained as he produced another intact bone. “The touch of a mortal reverts a hind to their natural form.”

Sherlock went to the bars and strummed the bone again. The pitch was higher this time, but halfway through the bone cracked apart from the abuse.

“Oi! I said knock it off!” came another guards’ shout.

Sherlock chucked away the broken bone. “Poultry.”

He paced a few times and muttered a bit more. Lestrade had never seen him quite so agitated, although circumstances considered there was a great deal to be unhappy about. Still, it wasn’t their first capture, nor their first mess of what should’ve been an easy job.

“Sherlock?” Lestrade prompted.

Sherlock shook his head and folded his arms. “Something’s not right. It’s like a pebble in my boot. I can’t pick it out of my brain.”

“I’ll tell you what’s not right. This whole creepy castle and the creepy king who runs it. If you ever need to come back to Tantalus, count me _out_.”

“It was something in his words,” Sherlock muttered to himself. “But what?”

Lestrade swung his feet around to dangle off the bench. He knew that look on his friend’s face: one of puzzlement but also pain. Magnus had apparently found a way to crawl under Sherlock’s skin despite the demigod’s assurances it wouldn’t happen.

“What did he say to you?” Lestrade asked.

Sherlock’s pale eyes swept upward, though his arms stayed clasped around himself. “Nothing of any obvious value.”

“In my business you’ve got to learn how to read people,” Lestrade intoned. “I may be shit at it sometimes, but I’ve known you long enough to see when something’s wrong. You looked… disturbed, last night. The same as right now.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did he do something to you?”

“No.”

Lestrade raised his eyebrows. “Mate, you’ve got to do better than that. When you get back to Corinth, John’s going to take one look at your face and march straight back here to kill Magnus with his bare hands.”

“I said it’s fine,” Sherlock insisted, though he glanced away in discomfort as he spoke. It was as close as he was likely to get to an outright admission of Magnus’ mistreatment, and Lestrade sighed.

Sherlock further avoided the topic by ducking to scrabble around at the base of the stone bench. “I suppose it none of that matters if we’re just going to rot away in this bloody cell,” Lestrade mused. “Last time we met, you’d have devised a way out hours ago.”

Sherlock rose with a piece of bone about four inches long. “You want out? Fine.”

He knocked the bone against the bars as he’d done with the others. This one sounded resonant and thick. Sherlock smiled approvingly at it before gripping the bone at either end and twisting. It snapped lengthwise, like a dog would do to get at the marrow, and Sherlock handed over the smaller of the two pointy shards.

“Now this, Lestrade, is a human bone,” he said. “You can tell by the density. They make for wonderful lock picks.”

Lestrade stared blankly at it: sharp and long and perfect for jamming into the crude iron lock on their cell. “What the-- you were able to get us out this whole time?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock said, rolling his eye. “I was taking the time to think. And waiting for the right moment. You’ll notice they didn’t yell at us when I made a racket that last time. The guards are likely ignoring us now, which mean we can get the jump on them. Now hurry up!”

Grabbing the chunk of bone, Lestrade flew to the cage door and knelt to begin picking the lock. Macabre elements aside, the bone was as sturdy as Sherlock promised and In a matter of seconds he’d tripped the mechanism and the door swung open.

Sherlock rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. Now to find Janine.”

Lestrade rose to his feet and dropped the human bone with a grimace, wiping a hand on his jerkin. He registered Sherlock’s words and looked up. “Hold on. Janine?”

“Problem?”

He shook his head. “No. No way. I did _not_ sign on for a rescue mission.”

“We need hind blood,” Sherlock reasoned. “She’s the last hind in existence. If we get her out of here, we can borrow a few drops and be done with it.”

“We don’t even know where he’s keeping her!” Lestrade said.

“It’s not difficult to deduce. She won’t be down here in the dungeons. Not for something so rare. He wants her alive. The quarters she was held in are no longer secure. Magnus is enjoying his moment of triumph over a failed plot and a noted foe. No, he’s going to use this incident. He’s going to solidify his power base in preparation to expand it. Janine will be in the thr--”

“--in the throne room,” finished a soft, deliberate voice.

Lestrade and Sherlock looked up simultaneously just as King Magnus appeared from the dark stair, flanked on either side by his heavily armed and armored guards.

“How very thoughtful,” Magnus said. “Letting yourselves out just as I was coming to get you.”

They were chained and paraded into King Magnus’ court like a pair of condemned criminals. The nobles of the land crowded the marble-pillared atrium, dressed in their silks and brocades and golden accessories. Lestrade wondered how many of them had seen the heroic Sherlock arrive in splendid welcome only the day before. Friendly faces were in short supply among the crowd. In fact, they were nowhere to be seen.

“Yeesh,” Lestrade muttered to Sherlock. “You’d think we’d killed the family dog.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the onlookers. “Dog? Yes. Family? No.”

Sherlock didn’t have time to elaborate on what he’d meant by that, because the head guard yanked on the chain connecting Sherlock’s wrists and pulled him up to the raised platform that held Magnus’ throne. As Sherlock had predicted and Magnus had confirmed, Janine was seated there at the foot of the elaborately carved seat. She was back in her human form and chained to a post. She sat demurely, eyes red from recent weeping, although a spark of worry crossed her face as she saw Lestrade and Sherlock being manhandled in her direction. Sherlock was chained to the post opposite of Janine, though as usual he looked coolly unconcerned with the situation.

The guards coerced Lestrade up the platform as well, although he was placed in far less conspicuous spot behind the throne itself. There he was forced to his knees in supplication as the king made his way through the hall.

Magnus climbed the stairs to his throne and turned, casting emotionless eyes on those before him. “These are the fiends who attempted to steal that which is most precious to me,” Magnus declared to the gathered courtiers. “Sherlock, son of Zeus, whom I welcomed into my home as friend and brother. Who had a seat at my table and a place by my hearth. He and his manservant betrayed me this evening past. They broke the laws of hospitality. They must be punished.”

Mutterings rose from the courtiers. They didn’t seem to know what to think -- had Magnus the right to discipline a national hero? Apparently the answer was yes, because none made a move to intervene in the proceedings.

Magnus approached Sherlock, who stood with his back to the post and his arms lashed behind it. “You came here seeking to negotiate,” Magnus said. “Shall we begin with your life?”

“You think to kill me?” Sherlock challenged.

“There are ways of making a life worth less than living. I am much for keeping to myself the rare and exceptional. Take a place in my collection and I’ll even allow Janine to go free.” Magnus cocked his head and dragged a curious finger up the front of Sherlock’s chest. “I’ve never had a demigod before.”

That was when Lestrade spotted it: the sprig of white poking out from Sherlock’s right gauntlet. He’d clearly managed to hide the second piece of human bone from their prison cell and was twisting his wrist to pick blindly at the lock between his hands.

Lestrade opened his mouth to distract the king while Sherlock worked, but another voice instead rose in protest.

“Stop it!” Janine shouted. “Leave him alone!”

His fingers grazing the hollow of Sherlock’s throat, Magnus frowned glanced down at Janine. Pure wrath burned in her dark, beautiful eyes.

“My dear, is it replacement you fear?” Magnus hummed. “He’s an impressive prize, surely, but you shall always have a special place in my heart. Even if your family did abandon you to me in exchange for protection as they fled.”

Frustrated tears pooled in Janine’s eyes. She blinked them back, her sudden burst of courage failing her, and cast her gaze away again.

It was all the time Sherlock needed. The chains rattled as they hit the floor and Sherlock lunged at Magnus, wrapping his arms around the king and holding the shard of human bone to his throat before the guards could even draw their swords. Gasps carried from the crowd and Magnus flinched as the razor edge of white touched his skin. It was the first human reaction Lestrade had seen from the disturbingly impassive man, and it bolstered him.

“Untie them,” Sherlock demanded nodding toward Janine and Lestrade in turn. “ _Now_.”

The guards looked to the king for direction. His small, pale eyes were wide and his cheeks flushed a pale pink. “Do it!” he croaked at his men.

Sherlock kept Magnus in a deathly armlock as the guards rattled away at the chains. Lestrade stood to brush himself off once freed, smirking as he took a guardsman’s sword right out of its scabbard. “And the rest,” Lestrade threatened, jabbing his sword point at the other armed men, “or the old man gets his last prick from my demigod friend here!”

Sherlock sighed deeply at the jape, but the rest of the swords and spears clattered to the floor. Lestrade motioned for them to descend the throne’s platform and join everyone else.

Sherlock angled himself so that Magnus was on display in his full panicky glory. “King Magnus here has much to answer for,” he boomed. “He’s held the last of the Golden Hinds against her will. He’s taxed and abused his citizens. He’s undoubtedly got plenty of dirt on each and every one of you. Every embarrassing family secret, every socially unacceptable habit, every mistake you’ve ever made. He knows about them. He’s exploited them. He’s used them against you and made you feel grateful for it. It’s time his reign came to an end. I’m prepared to do what must be done, but he is your king and it is your decision. If a single one of you -- _any_ of you -- speaks now in favor of him, I will spare his life.”

The room became conspicuously quiet. The noblemen and women of the court stared up at Sherlock in determined silence. The advisors and aides of the king set their jaws and watched their king coldly. Even the royal guards exchanged looks of uncertainty, waiting for one of their brethren to speak up for the man to whom they’d pledged their lives. Not a single soul parted their lips.

Not a family indeed, Lestrade thought.

“I’ll speak for him.”

Everyone turned to look at the source of the plea. It was Janine, one hand nervously wrapped around the pillar beside the throne. Her long dark hair hung across one shoulder and her face shone hopeful, but it was not kindness that lit her eyes.

“He doesn’t deserve to die,” she said. “Death’s too good for someone like him. He ought to know what it feels like to have your entire life stolen away for no good reason at all.”

“So be it,” Sherlock said.

They marched King Magnus from the royal hall by blade point in an enormous procession. The steely gazes of the courtiers lacked any sympathy whatsoever for their former king, and Lestrade thought the sentence by Janine was a more fortunate end than many would have chosen. Sherlock led them to the undercroft chamber where Janine had spent countless days and months and years under strict guard. It was only ten paces by twelve, and everyone looked on as King Magnus was made to go inside it.

“You can’t do this!” Magnus seethed as Sherlock handed the key to Janine. “You’ll beg me for death before I get through with you!”

“The only begging you can expect to hear is your own,” Janine said. “I assure you, no one else will be listening.”

Magnus screamed as the door was shut, and to Janine’s credit the heavy wood did rather a fine job of blotting out the sound. The key turned in its lock and Janine spun round, and for the very first time, she smiled.

They soon left the squabbling nobles to their deliberations on who ought next to occupy the throne. Lestrade breathed a long-needed breath of fresh air as they passed through the portcullis of Tantalus keep.

“What a lovely day,” Lestrade sighed. “The moat here is gurgling happily, the sun is beating down on us merrily. We saved the girl and deposed the mad king. It’s almost enough to make the fact that I’ve no treasure to show for any of this a bit less depressing.”

“I said you could keep what you could carry out,” Sherlock said. “You really found nothing?”

Lestrade jangled the pockets of his breeches. “Well, obviously I had to express my congratulations to the ladies and gentlemen of the court. Kiss their hands and all. It’s not _my_ fault if their jeweler’s a slipshod judge of proper ring sizing.”

“What about you?” Janine asked Sherlock. “What did you come for? You couldn’t possibly have known I’d be here.”

“My brother’s in a great deal of trouble,” Sherlock admitted. “I came for a pendant containing hind’s blood. My friends and I need to kill Ares before he causes the deaths of thousands.”

“The pendant. That’s what you meant?” Janine tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Give me something sharp.”

Lestrade handed her one of his knives and before he could stop her, Janine sliced the palm of her hand clean open. “I’ll need something to soak this up,” she said, biting her lip from the pain.

Lestrade ripped off the cuff of his linen sleeve and handed it over to her. She covered her palm with it and let the blood seep into the cloth. Once it was thoroughly soaked, she handed it to Sherlock.

“Ares led the destruction of my kind,” she explained. “He feared us for our blood. Take mine and kill the bastard with it.”

“Thank you, Janine,” Sherlock said. “Where can we find you if we need more?”

Janine shook her head. “You won’t. I’ll be far away from here by the then. I’m not taking any chances. Not again.”

She turned to go, and as she went she tossed away the key to King Magnus’ chamber. It plopped into the moat, sinking down beneath the water where no one would ever find it. Lestrade and Sherlock watched her walk away, the last of her kind in a rough shapeless shift, clutching a bleeding palm to her chest.

“You’re welcome to join us in Corinth,” Sherlock said, glancing at Lestrade. “We’d be glad to have a man of your skills.”

Lestrade grimaced. “Gods and hind blood and cities at war. This hero business is a bit too rich for my taste. I’ll see you on the other side, Sherlock. Like always.”

They shook hands.

“Good luck to you,” Sherlock said.

“And to you, my friend.”

 

* * *

 

The temple of Hera was under siege, and deep inside its stone walls Molly was ready. She picked out an Amazonian sword from the rack and ran her fingers down the length of the steel, checking the sharpness. Satisfied, she handed it to John. He swung the borrowed blade, testing the balance.

“It’s lighter than I’m used to,” John said, “but it’ll do.”

“The Amazon style features agile, stinging strikes,” Molly explained. “You’ll need to rely on your arm strength for the types of blows you tend to favor.”

John grinned at the sword. “We don’t usually carry weapons. As far as I’m concerned, any sharp edge is better than none.”

Molly picked up her staff and gave it a twirl. “Come on, then. Irene’s going to need us.”

They followed the stream of armed Amazons making their way out the temple doors to take up defensive positions on the broad stone promenade. Outside, the centaur assault was already nearing fever pitch. Centaurs galloped in sets of three or four, throwing spears and launching arrows and fighting hand-to-hand with the Amazon warriors. The centaurs bore injuries from their previous assaults on the temple, bleeding from old wounds broken fresh as well as new ones. Scorched fur, split hooves, bandaged heads were visible all around.

Both sides were worn to the breaking point, driven to fight long past when any sensible commander could possibly think it wise. It was a frothing, vengeful sort of conflict, as if the only thing motivating each side was pure hatred for their enemy. The battlefield was filled with the cries of fallen Amazons and thunder of stumbling hooves, and at the very center was Irene.

Molly didn’t spot her at first amidst the torn-up earth and rising smoke. Then she realized the formation of centaurs in the middle wasn’t actually a formation; it was a litter of wounded bodies staggering away in an attempt to escape. Silver flashed in the sunlight, glinting from the surface of Athena’s aegis and deadly-sharp spear point. Irene’s raven hair and flying skirts were visible in the chaos. She spun about with a snarl on her face as she took down opponent after opponent with all the grace and fluidity of a leopard.

“What’s that about Irene needing us?” John asked beside Molly.

“I've never seen her fight like that,” Molly said in awe. “Like Athena herself. Like she thinks she’s invincible.”

“It’s just warrior’s fervor,” John said. “Happens all the time. Let’s go make sure she gets through this.”

The battle was chaos as they joined it; a free for all of desperate assaults and uncoordinated maneuvers. Molly quickly knocked out two dazed centaurs with the base of her staff before glancing around to take stock of the field. Outnumbered at least three to one, the Amazons fought viciously as cornered beasts for the small bit of sanctuary they had managed to attain. She saw Lira and the other Amazon scouts who had captured them earlier, Queen Cyane and her advisors, the wounded, the tired. Every able-bodied woman was fighting for her life. Molly locked eyes on the glimpses of silver that marked Irene’s position.

The centaurs were bulky up close, with the hairy shanks of a draft horse and well-muscled male torsos. Molly had the advantage of the lower ground and was able to trip them with the shaft of her staff or knock out their joints from behind. Blades and arrows and spear tips of the Amazons pierced those who Molly felled, and together they cleared a path to Irene.

What Molly saw took her breath away. Irene, dazzling even on her off days, was bounding and flipping and leaping about as Molly had never witnessed. Her godly weapons twirled as if guided by the might of Olympus itself; shield smashing into faces, spear plunging into flesh, one strike after another like some beautifully choreographed dance. Every thrust of her arm and turn of her leg delivered another devastating blow to the centaurs in Irene’s path. Some were attempting to fight her, others simply to flee, but there was no escape once Irene had trained her warrior’s senses on her enemy. She traveled the battlefield as a devastating whirlwind, destroying every centaur in her path.

Molly jogged around the dying bodies writhing in the dirt as Irene at last came to a rest, her foes expended. She was breathing heavily against her tight-fitted bodice, and the muscles of her arms flexed behind the shield’s girth. Blood and grime spattered her skin but the weapons were preternaturally clean.

“Gods, that was incredible!” Molly shouted. “I can’t believe--”

Irene jerked her head at the sound of Molly’s voice. There was a manic look in her blue eyes from behind the sweat-laced strands of her hair, and suddenly Molly was dodging the swing of the gleaming silver spear. She vaulted backward, shocked, as Irene advanced on her, swiping with the shield’s heavy edge and lancing toward her with the spear. Molly got off one block with her staff but the second struck the wood and cracked it in half with a terrible _snap!_

If not for the abrupt appearance of another aggressive group of centaurs, Molly wasn’t sure what would have happened. Irene’s attention shifted to the greater threat and she began sparring with a large dark centaur wearing a leather harness. His sword clanged mightily as it clashed with the spear of Athena. Molly did not see the rest of the fight, for she turned and ran as fast as her legs would carry her.

The battle was largely over, but Molly was trembling when she reached Queen Cyane, still clutching her broken staff. John was there too, his sword dirtied and a light sheen of sweat on his skin. The group parted as she staggered toward them, glancing her way in concern.

“She attacked me,” Molly said, grabbing at John’s arm. “She attacked me!’

John’s easy smile flickered away. “Hold on, what’s happened?”

Molly shook him. “She _attacked_ _me_. Something’s wrong! Terribly wrong!”

“Molly, are you certain?” asked Queen Cyane with a troubling frown.

“She’s not in her right mind! She tried to kill me!” Molly told them.

They turned to look. The remaining centaurs were fleeing in defeat and the field around the temple was nearly emptied. But out near the edges of the battlefield, Irene was still fighting. Her Amazon sisters had become her target, standing their ground and warding her off with their own weapons as Irene circled like a predator. She lunged toward them periodically, completely unfazed by the fact that they were friends, not enemies.

“Oh, gods,” John whispered.

“We’ve got to do something,” Molly pleaded, moving forward to go to Irene.

John stopped her. “Molly, it’s too dangerous.”

“She’s my friend. I’m going to help her.”

“Let me.”

Molly glared icily at him. “Would you let someone else do it if it was Sherlock out there?”

That seemed to get through John’s thick skull. He blinked out at Irene’s fighting form and scowled lightly, as if picturing his own partner deranged by Olympian artifacts. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll work together. Try talking her down. If she’ll listen to anyone, it’s you.”

A light rain had started up by the time they made their way back to Irene. The Amazons facing off against her had cornered her in a circle of spears and bows. They glanced warily at Cyane and Molly, unsure what to do.

“It’s all right, my warriors,” Cyane said, holding up a hand. “Let Molly speak with her.”

Molly was weaponless as she approached Irene in the circle. She took a deep breath as she passed beyond the Amazons’ bow points. Irene was crouched in the center, her shield raised to block any stray arrows and her spear aimed steady to ward off attack.

“Irene?” Molly asked.

Irene’s eyes were bright with menace, as if she didn’t recognize Molly from a stranger on a road. Irene bared her teeth and shifted her stance, a clear warning that Molly shouldn’t come any further.

“Irene,” she begged gently. “Irene, it’s done. You’re finished. Let’s just-- just put down the spear.”

The silver scrollwork shone unnaturally bright as Irene’s fist squeezed around the haft, as if the weapons were reflecting light that did not exist on earth. The rain pinged against the curve of the shield. Droplets like tears ran down the stylized warrior’s face carved into its center.

Molly took a step closer, raising her arms to show she meant no harm. “You recognize me, don’t you? Molly. Your Molly.”

Irene’s eyes flicked beneath the shadow of her wild hair. Her chin lifted, and she looked almost puzzled.

Molly glanced at the rainy sky before meeting Irene’s gaze again. “Not three weeks ago we were caught in that terrible rainstorm in Arcadia. You were worried about Argo taking the damp. We shared a pomegranate and the last of the figs from my mother’s garden. You fell in that puddle and I laughed until I couldn’t breathe, and then you pulled me down with you so that we were both soaked. Don’t you remember?”

She was within an inch of Irene’s spear point, and for a blindingly fearful second Molly actually though Irene was going to lunge forward. Instead she straightened her knees, her breath slowing in her chest, and Molly detected a softening in her brow. Irene was coming back.

Something moved in the corner of Molly’s vision. Her gaze snapped up and she saw a blond head over Irene’s shoulder; John was sneaking toward her, arms outstretched to steal away the mystically enhanced weaponry that was causing Irene’s fugue. Irene registered the movement of Molly’s eyes and in a second the frenzy was back in her expression. She whipped around, and in one fluid strike thrust the silver spear at John.

John’s eyes went glassy with shock. The seconds seemed to slow as he glanced down and traced the long line of the spear impaling him through the center of his chest.

He blinked once, then twice, and then John’s knees gave way beneath him. He thudded to the ground and managed to look up at Irene, confusion and disbelief etched into his face. Irene was frozen in place as she stared at him, mouth falling soundlessly open. Her right hand released its hold on the spear, and with nothing left to keep John upright, he slumped on his side in the mud.

Molly screamed and rushed to him, shaking his fallen body but knowing it was useless. He did not respond. He did not rise. Tears slid down Molly’s cheeks and she heard the aegis fall to the ground behind her, clanging heavily. Molly glanced up through blurry heat.

All trace of the gods’ sway was gone from Irene’s face. She looked down at Molly in shocked helplessness, finally back to her senses by the tragedy of her own doing. She collapsed prostrate to her knees beside John’s still form, and from her throat rose a long and anguished sound.

Heads bowed and weapons lowered all around them. Molly wept as the Amazons’ voices joined with Irene’s, rising into a unified dirge of mourning for one they called friend, brother, hero.


	6. Chapter 6

**S1, Ep06: "Not Fade Away"**

 

Mycroft looked up from the planning table when he heard the patter of small sandaled feet over expensive Damascus carpets. The gathered commanders parted to allow Archie’s curly-haired head access to the king.

“It’s them, my lord!” the boy announced excitedly. “And they brought _Amazons_!”

“Very well, Archie,” he said. Mycroft signaled an attendant to come remove the sealed jar containing the rag soaked in hind’s blood that Sherlock had retrieved. Once it was secured back in its iron box for safekeeping, Mycroft nodded a dismissal to his commanders. “I suppose we should go greet them properly.”

Archie scampered off to resume his duties as Mycroft hurried from the royal tent. The guards posted outside bowed their heads obediently, and Mycroft relieved them with a wave of his hand as glanced about at the bustling camp. They were later then they’d promised, of course, but he hadn’t expected Irene to obey the agreed-upon timeframe. Frankly, he was surprised she’d decided to return at all, and apparently with bolstered forces.

Could he accept Amazon fighters into the ranks? Those heathen women were loyal to their own tribes first and foremost, but the situation with the siege had grown perilously critical. Mycroft followed a dozen threads of potential conversation through his mind’s eye, looking for a path that would lead to a cordial yet reluctant agreement to take on the Amazons. One should not appear _too_ desperate, no matter the circumstances.

The gazes of his men-at-arms pressed upon him as he walked briskly toward the main encampment gate. Mycroft kept his head high and his eyes forward, projecting a poised and confident image to those who sought reassurance from their king. He’d found that ruling a city-state was as much about policy as it was about appearance. The illusion of fearlessness was a powerful force in the minds of common men. It could drive them to accomplish impossible feats, and never was there a time more in need of such things.

Mycroft stopped to wait as the procession of two-dozen Amazons wound into the camp. They walked with spears and rode upon sprightly mares. The soldiers cheered as the line of visitors came toward Mycroft and the respectful gap of open space that had formed around him.

Molly dismounted with the first of the Amazons, but there was something troubling to her face. The Amazons were also rather grim, as they usually were whenever Mycroft happened across them. He frowned, however, as he checked their reluctant body language and Molly’s refusal to meet his direct gaze. Several rounds of _Huzzah!_ went up in the surrounding crowd and Mycroft speedily scanned the warriors for the source of their hesitance.

It was there, with Irene in the rear: a large object wrapped in linen and draped behind her saddle.

The world grew cold as ice in an instant. Mycroft turned round to see which attendants were near. Two young cupbearers, a girl and a boy, stood in his shadow, blinking up dumbfounded at the king’s sudden recognition of their existence. “Find my brother immediately,” Mycroft hissed. Another chorus of cheers rose from the men. “ _Go_.”

The youths were new to the business of serving the king, but they shot away with admirable initiative. Mycroft set his mouth and returned his gaze to Irene. He prided himself in the limited interference of emotion upon his decisions. He’d built a political career on that unshakable base. It’s what had earned him the crown and the authority to wield it. But as Mycroft watched Irene bear the heavy, linen-wrapped figure from her horse, Mycroft experienced a stab of outrage deeper than anything he’d felt in years.

The Corinthian soldiers were no strangers to death, and they quieted as they realized what it was that Irene carried. She made her way slowly to Mycroft, her eyes low and her expression cast somber.

She set her load carefully on the ground only three paces from Mycroft’s feet. The linen was pulled away, and there lay the still, pale body of John. His eyes were shut and he appeared as if sleeping, save for the bandage wrapping his chest beneath his vest. Dark bloodstains seeping through the material told of the catastrophic injury that had ended his life.

Irene rose and backed away, looking as a disobedient hound awaiting a reprimand.

“ _Who did this_?” Mycroft thundered.

His words sent a shockwave through the Amazons and the crowd. Irene alone did not flinch.

“It-- it was an accident,” Molly stuttered. “It wasn’t--”

“No,” Irene cut in. “No, Molly. You don’t need to make excuses. It was me.”

Mycroft nearly bit through his own tongue. “You.”

“Yes,” Irene said.

“ _You_ , whom I brought into my service and gave my trust. _You_ , a declared ally of my brother.”

“Yes.”

Mycroft gestured at John’s corpse. “Is this what your allegiance is worth?”

A complex chain of reactions spread through Irene’s face. She swallowed and blinked and flexed her jaw, seemingly unsure of how she should respond.

“She didn’t mean to!” Molly pleaded. “She wasn’t in her right mind-- she’d _never--_ ”

“Never?” Mycroft demanded. “Never is an unyielding word, and quite contrary to the evidence here before us. By her own admission, she has killed my brother’s oldest friend. What am I to make of this if not to condemn it?”

Molly did not have the opportunity to respond, because murmurings had begun spreading through those gathered. Mycroft glanced aside and found that his brother had finally arrived.

Sherlock went leaden when his eyes landed on John. Everything about him simply ceased to function. He stopped mid-stride among the parting commoners, his body frozen in confounded shock. His face was vacant and his eyes devoid of the lively brilliance that usually lit them. He looked as dead as John.  

Finally, his gaze rose to find Mycroft, and it was as if Sherlock were five years old again. That short-lived age when he thought the sun rose and set by Mycroft’s infallible whim. The little brother he had vowed to protect, demigod though he might be. And Mycroft had let _this_ happen.

With a stiff gait Sherlock crossed the silent distance to John. He stood above him, exhaling a shaky breath, and knelt carefully at his side, as if afraid of waking him from a deep slumber. Sherlock slid one arm beneath John’s back and the other under his knees. He lifted John from where he rested, with limbs dangling and head tucked against Sherlock’s chest.

Tears were streaming down Irene’s cheeks. She reached out tentatively to his turned back. “Sherlock,” she pleaded.

Sherlock ignored her. He took a moment to adjust his grip under the weight of the body and, gazing down at John with profoundly intimate grief, carried him quietly away.  

Irene covered her face with her hands. Molly wept. No one seemed to know what to do or think. Countless among the Corinthian soldiers looked to their king for guidance. Mycroft saw the question on their faces. Without John, how effectual could Sherlock be in protecting them?

The answer, Mycroft feared, was one he dare not acknowledge. His political instincts told him a show of strength was needed at a time like this. Fortunately, it was a rare moment in which his personal reaction to a situation need not be amended.

“Get out of my sight,” Mycroft ordered of Irene. “If you ever return here, I will have you executed on the spot.”

 

* * *

 

Molly felt sick as she walked in Irene’s wake on the road from Corinth. Storm clouds gathered overhead, threatening the onset of rain on the horizon. Irene’s white-knuckled fist clenched Argo’s reins as she pulled the horse along. She had said barely five words since they left the Corinthian forces. Molly’s skin still crawled with the memory of the hateful glares they had encountered as they fled.

She glanced at the long, lonely road behind them. The trees rustled in the wind as their shadows absorbed into the overcast light. Would they even know if enemy soldiers were poised to intercept them? Irene seemed to be staring only at the ground.

“We have to go back,” Molly said worriedly. “We can’t just leave it like that. And Sherlock! Gods, did you see him? We have to go back.”

“You heard Mycroft’s decree,” Irene said, not bothering to turn around.

“They need us,” Molly argued. “They can’t hope to stop Ares without us! It’s awful what happened but more people will die if we don’t--”

Irene whipped around suddenly, a bright and painful fury in her eyes. “And what do you expect to tell them?” she demanded. “What can we possibly say to make this better?”

Molly straightened her spine and refused to let herself start weeping again. The dark clouds roiled fiercely in the sky. “We can explain. Mycroft just needs time to regain his head--”

“And Sherlock? What of him? You think he’ll welcome me with open arms after what I’ve done?” She looked as despairing as Molly had ever seen her. “If something happened to you, I would never forgive the person who did it.”

Molly blinked back tears. “They can’t possibly think you’d do it on purpose! You’ve got to explain to them that it was an accident!”

Irene turned away.

“Irene?” Molly asked.

She picked up Argo’s reins and resumed leading the horse away from Corinth.

Molly stilled in the road, brows furrowing. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

Irene tensed up, her hand flexing in agitation. She didn’t answer for several long moments, and when she did it was the last thing Molly could have expected to hear.

“Go away,” she called. “I don’t want you with me anymore."

Thunder rumbled. Molly stared after her in shock. Irene had made it another twenty paces before Molly’s legs agreed to move again, picking up speed to run after her.

“Irene! You can’t just send me away--”

Irene wrenched her chakram from her belt and held it out in warning. Even in the low light, the disc’s razor edge shone with deadly sharpness. “I said _go_ ,” she shouted, but her lips were quivering as she said it. “If you try to follow, I will tie you up and leave you at the nearest crofter’s cottage.”

“Irene,” Molly begged. “Please don’t do this!”

Her words fell on deaf ears as Irene turned round and continued on with her journey. Molly watched her recede down the path. She did not follow.

 

* * *

 

The priestesses of Asclepius wanted to take John’s body for washing. Sherlock threw the black ewer at them, then the matching basin, and they rushed fearfully from his tent.

It was as if a cold, heavy stone had lodged itself inside Sherlock’s chest. Breathing was painful. He was sure his ribs would crack apart from the strain. Sherlock looked around for something else to toss, and the unlit brazier went crashing the ground with a tremendous _clang_. The portable tables and lanterns landed alongside it. Sherlock turned, wanting to tear down the entire structure, but his gaze landed on John.

He’d laid him on the bed they were meant to share. John’s eyes were shut and one of his arms was draped across his stomach, and he looked almost as if he were taking his long-sought rest on a proper bed. But Sherlock’s hyperactive brain highlighted all the wrongness in him: how his chest did not rise or fall, the translucent coloring of his skin, the stiff angles his joints formed.

Sherlock sat down beside John. He ought to be feeling something. Now that the shock had worn off, all that was left was a numb sort of rage. He knew exactly who was to blame for this.

“Did the Amazons tell you how it happened?” came Mycroft’s voice.

Sherlock hadn’t even heard the tent flaps open again. He touched John’s hand. His skin was as cold as the feeling inside his ribcage. “Yes,” Sherlock said.

“I’m sorry.”

Sherlock turned and eyed his brother soberly. “He planned this.”

Mycroft was keeping his distance, staying near the tent’s entrance. “Ares?” he asked.

Sherlock nodded. “He planned everything. He gave Irene that dream and told her not to come. It made her do just the opposite, which was exactly what he wanted. He set the giant minotaur upon us knowing it would convince Irene that he must be stopped. The obvious method is hind’s blood, and he was ready. He knew I’d want to face Magnus alone and that I would send the others away. He made a deal with Magnus in exchange for the pendant. Our only stroke of luck is that Ares didn’t know Magnus was keeping the last hind for himself. He set the Amazons back to war with the centaurs and replaced the bloody dagger with the weapons of Athena. He knew Irene would pick them up. He knew she would lose control. He knew John would try to act the hero and stop her. He knew everything.”

“You’re saying we’ve fallen right into his trap?” Mycroft asked.

“He promised to burn the heart out of me,” Sherlock said, looking back to John’s still face. “This is what he meant.”

A hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Sherlock,” his brother gently said. “We need to prepare him for the funerary rites.”

Sherlock shoved away Mycroft’s hand with a scowl. “No one is to touch him! His body must stay intact.”

Mycroft gave him a pitying frown. “He’s gone, Sherlock.”

“He’s not _gone_ ,” Sherlock hissed.

They locked eyes. Sherlock glowered with all the intensity he could muster. Mycroft blinked in consternation, his brows creasing as he understood what Sherlock was implying.

“His soul could be in any part of the Underworld by now,” Mycroft reasoned. “He’s probably passed on to the Asphodel Meadows or the Elysian Fields, and you know how Hades feels about disrupting--”

“I’ve got him back before,” Sherlock pointed out.

“You said Hades did it in exchange for a favor,” Mycroft said. “You worked out that business with Persephone last time, and without leverage of that sort who’s to say you’ll find Hades so congenial?”

“Then I’ll _make_ Hades give him back.”

Mycroft’s face was skeptical. “You are every bit the son of a god, little brother, but not even you can break the laws of death.”

Sherlock rose from John’s bedside. “Watch me,” he dared.

He began moving about the tent, finding a satchel buried beneath the shattered remains of a wooden chair and picking through the mess for supplies. Apples bruised from their impact with the ground, intact jugs good for carrying water, the few scattered coins he’d saved.

Mycroft watched him as he worked before clearing his throat. “Sherlock, I didn’t want to impose unnecessarily during your time of mourning, but you need to know my scouts have reported that the Thessalonians and Thracians are on the move. They’re assembling for assault. You cannot leave. I need you here with us, now.”

Sherlock angrily threw the half-filled satchel onto the bed next to John and turned on Mycroft. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care about your stupid armies or your stupid city. Why do I have to fix every mess that comes along? Why can’t people just leave us _alone_?”

“You chose a life as a hero,” Mycroft told him.

“No, I didn’t,” Sherlock said bitterly. “It was John. He knew I could help. He wanted me to. He believed I’m better than I am.”

The cold lump of stone in his chest was growing larger. Sherlock gazed at John again. The sunny tones had fled from his skin and hair, leaving behind some frigid doppelganger. He closed his eyes and told himself once more that the empty body on the bed was merely John’s transport. John was elsewhere. John was retrievable.

“Of course,” Mycroft said, “I can’t force you to do anything. You are a free man, just as any Greek. But I am asking you, here, as a brother in need, to please stay and help us.”

Sherlock lowered his head. His decision had been made from the moment he saw John lying lifeless at Irene’s feet. If it were anyone else, things might be different.

He picked up the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Don’t let anyone touch his body,” Sherlock said. “I’ll be setting my own watchers to make sure of it.”

Mycroft sighed. “We’ll wait to hold the burial until after you return. That is, if there’s anyone left in Corinth to do the burying.”

“I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

 

* * *

 

Darkness collected under the forest’s eaves and Argo snorted in protest, refusing to move forward. Irene tugged impatiently on the horse's bridle. "Come on, girl," she said.

Argo stamped a foreleg, flinging soft dirt.

"We're not going back," Irene insisted. She yanked harder. "Come on!"

The shrill whine of an arrow whizzed past Irene's head. Her senses instantly bore down into battle-focus, muscles tensing as she whipped about and drew her sword in one smooth motion. A man came screaming from the trees, short sword raised to strike at her. She blocked it with her blade and shoved him off balance, noting the thin leather armor that indicated a Thracian scout.

Another arrow flitted through the air, piercing the ground next to Irene's right boot. She scowled and flung her chakram up into the boughs of the tree. A shriek echoed from the upper limbs and Irene spotted a heavy dark object plummet straight to the ground with a painful thump. The chakram glinted as it ricocheted back down and Irene caught it with one hand.

Argo whinnied loudly. Irene turned in time to see the palomino rear on her hind legs and slam her front hooves into the swordsman as he found his feet. The force of the blow sent him sailing through the air, smashing into a tree trunk before slumping at its base.

Irene raised her chakram again, eyes and ears keen for any other sign of assailants. There didn't seem to be anyone else waiting to ambush them in the trees.

She turned to grab Argo's reins again, but suddenly they were not alone on the road.

Ares stood beside Argo, petting her neck.

“Hello, Irene," he said, grinning. "My darling, wonderful Irene.”

Irene sheathed her sword behind her back and frowned. “I should’ve known you had a hand in this."

The god of war arched dark eyebrow. "Those morons?” he said, pointed to the scouts. “They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was simply enjoying the show." He slid his hand from Argo’s neck and strode casually toward Irene. “I think you know why I’m here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Irene said.

“Don’t you?” Ares pouted. “Abandoning your devoted pet back there? Trying not to cry as you told her you didn’t want her any longer. You thought you were saving her by sending her away. That’s because you’re a sharp one, my dearest. You know precisely what happened at the temple of Hera. Athena’s armaments remove the inhibitions around one’s inherent blood thirst, but they do not create it where none exists. The actions you took were yours alone.”

Irene clenched her jaw shut. It was true that Molly deserved better than to die by Irene’s inevitable mistakes. She’d thought the hero business a lark back when Sherlock first saved her from herself. It looked easy from the outside; saving people, fighting the baddies, bathing in the peasants’ adoration. How quickly that had proven untrue. The last three years were the hardest of her life. Molly had helped a great deal. Without the timely crossing of their paths, Irene would not have made it as far as she had.

All roads had a destination, however. Time had proven she could not escape her own.

“Did you think yourself better than you are?” Ares purred, circling her like a slinking cat. “That your nobler traits might erase what you’ve done? The past may be the past, but one’s true nature does not change. You are a killer. You are a butcher. You speared Sherlock’s beloved without a second of hesitation. And _oh_ , my heart sang for the beauty of it.”

And so had Irene’s. For a wonderful moment she had experienced pure rapture at watching the life drain from John’s eyes. And once it had worn off, she was left with the agony of a shameful act. She knew now that, deep down, she longed for the clean amorality of her previous life. It was so much easier when the dead were like leaves scattered on the wind.

Ares stopped in front of her. His dark eyes glittered with the fires of bloodshed. “You are strongest when you are your baser self. Thanks to you, my one true obstacle sits broken and useless beside a dead man’s corpse. There is nothing in our way. Nothing we can’t do. I have such plans, Irene. Such beautiful, bloody plans, and you are the crown jewel of them all.”

Who was she kidding? She’d always known who she was. Three misguided years did not change that. Molly did not change that.

Irene matched gazes with the god of war. “Where do we start?” she asked.

Ares’ smile went wolfish with delight.


	7. Chapter 7

**S1, Ep07: "Descent"**

 

Lestrade had been tied naked to the tree for about five hours when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Lestrade?” Sherlock called.

“Is that you, eh?” Lestrade said, craning his head around. He tried to jostle himself as little as possible, due to the fact that his more delicate frontal parts were pressed to the rough bark. “Do us a favor, would you?”  

“You’re tied to a tree,” Sherlock observed.

He tried to shrug, but all it did was pull at the ropes connecting his wrists around the tree trunk. “Yeah? What of it?”

“You’re also not wearing any clothing.”

“Are you judging my hobbies now?”

Sherlock came round the side so that Lestrade could see him properly. He looked quite perplexed. “Did Lady Smallwood do this to you?” he asked.

“Er, yeah,” Lestrade said. “Turns out she was, erm, pulling a con. Same as me. She had her way with me, caught me in the midst of ‘liberating’ her jewelry, called me a naughty boy and proceeded to steal everything I had down to my britches.”

“There’s always something,” Sherlock murmured to himself. “I knew she was lying, obviously, but I didn’t realize it was a double sham--”

“You going to untie me?” Lestrade interrupted.

“Oh. Right.”

The rope snapped round back of the tree and Lestrade was finally freed. He shed the loops of rope around his wrists and rubbed at them. He wasn’t sure what burned more; the scrapes along his front or the sunburn along his back.

“What brings you back to Argos?” Lestrade said.

“You,” said Sherlock.

“Now, I thought I told you I don’t want anything to do with this hero business--”

“I need your help,” Sherlock cut in.

Lestrade shaded his eyes and finally got a good look at him. He was gaunt; there wasn’t another word for it. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. There was an unrelenting focus to his eyes. Sherlock looked like a man obsessed.

“Blimey,” Lestrade breathed. “What’s happened?”

“It’s John,” he said.

It was all he needed to say.

“Oh, gods. Again, is it?”

Sherlock flexed his jaw and folded his arms. “I’m afraid this time around isn’t so simple. I need to reach the Underworld of my own accord.”

Lestrade tapped thoughtfully at his chin. “The Alconian Lake has a portal at the bottom. Never been through myself, but I’ve met people who claimed to survive it.”

“You trust them?” Sherlock asked.

“I never trust anything I haven’t seen with my own two eyes, and even then it’s a gamble. But do I believe something’s down there that isn’t quite natural? Yes.”

“Take me there,” Sherlock said.

 

* * *

 

The sound of warfare had arrived at the Corinthian camp. Outside the tent, men shouted and horses screamed. Enormous wooden wheels rumbled as the defensive ballistae were wheeled to the barricades. Every now and then a shudder broke through the ground as enemy projectiles slammed into wood and earth. The priestesses of Asclepius carried the wounded on litters, using Mycroft’s own quarters for a makeshift hospital.

“My lord!” implored Mycroft’s head guardsman. “We must evacuate you to safer ground!”

“Nonsense,” Mycroft said from his desk, calmly sorting through the pile of reports. “The safer ground is being torn to shred as we speak. I will not leave this army leaderless, even in the face of certain extinction.”

“My lord, they will breach the walls in a matter of hours,” the guardsmen pleaded.

Mycroft looked up. “Then you best go and help bolster them. Is there any point in guarding a doomed king?”

The guardsman’s face fell, and Mycroft thought perhaps he had been too blunt with the boy. It was no longer the time for appearances, however, and Mycroft could not summon the the energy to pity him. He ought to know what was coming. His king owed him that much.

To Mycroft’s great surprise, the guard performed a solemn salute. “For Corinth, my lord!” he fervently proclaimed.

And with that, he ran off to die beside his fellow soldiers.

Mycroft thought he might be moved by such loyalty, if not for the fact that the youth’s death would mean nothing at all. A god’s wrath had no rationalization. Mortals were ants to be squashed beneath the boot heel of Olympus. Nothing more, nothing less.

He’d believed, once, that having a drop of Olympian blood on his side might even those odds, but Sherlock had proven as flawed and fallible as any living man. John was the chink in his armor; his Achilles’ heel. Perhaps it was not possible to eliminate all weakness. Mycroft had certainly tried, and yet here he sat, awaiting the bitter end because of his faith in his own blood family.

Curiously, he did not regret a moment of it. There were worse reasons to die.

Mycroft finished writing out his orders to one of the generals. He handed it to a page boy waiting at near the tent wall. The boy ran off with what was probably the final order he would ever decree. _Fight until the final man. There is no contingency plan._

He sat back in his chair and watched the priestesses of Asclepius, hooded in plain grey robes, as they wielded poultices and bandages in their work. It was a useless effort. The men they tended would be dead by tomorrow, one way or another. And yet they persevered.

Mycroft set his pen down. "There's no need to disguise yourself any longer, I think, Molly."

One of the priestesses froze in her work, washing the bloody thigh of a man who had taken an arrow. She stood and turned, and the priestess robes were shed. Molly stood before him, eyes reddened from recent tears and her face set with iron determination.

"You have some impudence to return here," Mycroft said.

Molly folded her arms. "Yeah? I seem to remember you only banished Irene, not me, so I've got every right to come back."

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow. "Would you like me to amend that loophole?"

Molly stormed toward the desk. "I'd like you to think for one bloody second! You can't do this without her. It-- it was an accident, and you've got to pardon her. You've got to, or everyone here will die."

"I'm quite aware that everyone here will die,” Mycroft said. “Unfortunately, it seems I've made the correct call about Irene."

"What do you mean?"

Mycroft leaned forward. "Can you read?"

"I'm a bard."

"And Homer was blind as a bat. Can you read?"

She nodded, and Mycroft pushed forward a report. The wax on it was still malleable, the papyrus stained with mud and flecks of what Mycroft feared to be blood.

Molly picked it up. She glanced at the text and then back up to Mycroft. "What is this?"

"A report, delivered to me directly from the front lines," Mycroft said.

Molly’s eyes grew wide as she absorbed what it said. "No. It can't be."

"I have others here to corroborate it,” Mycroft said, patting the pile beside him. “Irene, leading the enemy forces astride a palomino. She's fighting for Ares."

"No," Molly breathed.

"Molly, when someone goes bad, they are destined to stay that way. There is no reformation. There is no redemption. It was only a matter of time before she returned to her wicked ways. She came and left us defenseless, and now she rides against us."

"Defenseless?" Molly asked.

Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock departed last night, headed for the Underworld in hopes of negotiating with Hades for John's release. I do not anticipate he will return before Irene wipes Corinth off the map entirely."

Molly abruptly crumpled the report in her fist. "I don't believe this,” she said, eyes shining with new tears. “He's put a spell on her or something--"

"Believe what you like,” Mycroft said. “It does not change the fact that my men are dying, and that more will die in the hours to come."

"I'll find a way,” Molly insisted. “I've got to. It’s not her. It’s _not_."

Mycroft waved her away. “If you wish to go die with the rest of them, then by all means do so. Whoever your friend was, whatever facade she showed you, she’s not there any longer. My condolences.”

Molly turned and strode from the tent, the report still balled in her fist. Mycroft pulled out a fresh sheet of papyrus and dipped his pen again.  

_Fight until the final man. There is no contingency plan._

 

* * *

 

The Alconian Lake was largely indistinguishable from any other rural, inland body of water Sherlock had ever seen. The waves lapped happily upon the stony shore, the rushes swayed in the rising breeze, and birds above chirped out their repetitive songs.

“Are you sure this is it?” Sherlock asked Lestrade.

“Of course I’m sure!” Lestrade said, clad in the best loose-fitting roughspun Sherlock’s few dinars had afforded. He planted a hand on his waist and gestured at the water. “What were you expecting, a pool of brimstone and fire straight from Tartarus itself?”

“More or less,” Sherlock said.

“I’ll have you know this is one of the deepest lakes in Greece,” Lestrade pointed out. “You could easily drown before you reach the portal at the bottom. Come to think of it, I suppose you’ll make it to the Underworld one way or another.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Charming. But you’re coming with me.”

Lestrade gawked at him. “Oh, no. Me? No, see, I took you here like you asked. John’s my friend, too, and I’d do just about anything for him, but _that_ \--” he jabbed a thumb at the pleasant lake scene-- “is where I draw the line for anyone but my saint of a mother and my dearly departed Nana.”

Sherlock sighed deeply. “I supposed you’re not interested in the treasure, then.”

Lestrade perked up. “Treasure?”

“Hades has a vast hoard of priceless artifacts,” Sherlock said. “And once I return safely with John, my brother would be more than happy to compensate you for any occupational hazards during our trip. He’s the king of Corinth, you know. They’ve got so much gold to spare, they re-leafed half the temples in the city last year. And with a war on, who knows how much tribute plunder they’ll receive once it’s done?”

Lestrade wet his lips. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to pop down for a quick look.”

“Good,” Sherlock said. “I’ll, erm, need you to pickpocket Charon when we get there. I’m fresh out of gold coins to pay for the passage.”

They climbed up the hillside along the lake and, after a bit of arguing whether a trip through the portal to the Underworld would ruin good leather, took deep breaths and dove into the lake. Sherlock made an easy time of stroking through the pale murk, but Lestrade’s city-dwelling ways kept him struggling to keep up. Down they swam through the chilly water, until the light from the surface began to fade and Sherlock’s lungs burned with the strain of holding his breath. At last he saw it: a shimmering patch near the bottom-most silt, glowing with otherworldly light.

Passing through was a strange experience; one moment Sherlock was surrounded by cold, dark water and the next he was standing in a warm, dry cavern. He touched his shirt and glanced down, astonished, and an instant later Lestrade was there by his side.

“Well,” Lestrade said, eyes wide. “That was... something.”

A path wound through the cavern, leading to a slow-flowing river of thick fog. A boat formed from enormous bones and decaying wood sat moored at a little jetty of stone, beside which Charon the ferryman, lumpy and malformed in his long hooded robe, tooled around with a lantern and cook fire.

“Sherlock? Is that you?” he called when he saw the two on approach.

“Hello, Charon,” Sherlock said.

Charon threw up his hands. “It’s been years!” he crowed. “Ya never call, ya never write. I was beginning to think you’d forgot all about me. And then here comes Hades -- _sheesh_. ‘Watch out for Sherlock. Sherlock’s coming. Might as well give him a ride, free of charge, cause he’s gonna find a way down here one way or another.’”

“Hades is expecting me?” Sherlock asked.

“You better believe it!’ Charon said. “What’d ya do, lose all your dinars playing cards with a dead guy?”

Sherlock glanced at Lestrade. “Well. I suppose there’s no need to have you nick a coin or two from Charon’s stash.”

“Wait, you were gonna pay me from my _own gold_?” Charon scowled and hobbled around toward his ferry boat. “Ohhh, you’re lucky I’m not watching Cerberus today. I’d sic him on ya like a rind on pork! Oh, Tartarus, now you’ve and gone made me hungry...”

Sherlock and Lestrade followed him down the jetty, but Charon pointed a bulbous, pale finger at Lestrade. “Not you. Just Sherlock. Not unless you’ve got a coin.”

“Wha-- hey!” Lestrade said, raising his arms. “That robbery thing was all Sherlock’s idea.”

Charon grinned at him with rotten teeth. “Sorry, bub. Hades’ orders.”

Lestrade grumbled a bit, but he looked rather relieved at the prospect of not passing to the Underworld. He grabbed Sherlock by the arm as he passed. “Whatever you do, don’t eat the food,” Lestrade warned him. “‘If a living person eats it, they’ll be stuck here forever.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “That’s precisely why I advised Persephone to eat it, not so long ago.”

Lestrade was left lounging by Charon’s cook fire as the ferry boat slid silently into the flow of the river Styx. Sherlock peered over the edge at the roiling waters that moved them. It was more like congealed vapor than water, flicking up tails of white plasm that seemed unwise to touch. Charon steered with his long ferryman’s pole, yammering away about the petty bores plaguing the Underworld.

The ride was dull, consisting of various shapes and arrays of rock formations, until at last the cavern opened up and they docked in the Underworld proper. Sherlock disembarked and gazed up at the domed space above him, extending into the distance and shrouded in fogs and mists. Shapes of damned people moved among a forest of spindly, dead trees. Ancient tables of splintering wood could be seen here and there, decked with buffets of decomposing meats, shriveled fruits, and soured wine. Screams of the tortured echoed up from everyone and nowhere; Sherlock made out the blurry, distant shapes of people hanging upside down, strapped to iron racks. Those able to move were performing menial tasks as their bodies withered away: filling a bottomless well a thimbleful at a time, moving large boulders up inclines, moving rocks from one pile to another.

“Charon dropped you off in Tartarus, did he?” asked a female voice. “What a wanker.”

Sherlock turned to find Hades there before him. She was a woman of slight stature with short, pale blonde hair. She wore black armor, as one did when they were Lord of the Underworld, and looked almost kindly until you got close, when it became apparent that something deeply unsettling dwelled within her blue eyes. She was a goddess intimately connected with death and suffering, and untold ages of dealing with such depressing things affected a person, mortal or not.

“Sherlock,” Hades said with a knowing smirk. “The moment a certain recently-departed someone arrived, I knew I’d be hearing from you.”

Sherlock folded his arms defiantly. “I want him back.”

“I’d love to do that for you,” she said, taking him by the elbow and leading him away from the eternally damned. “You know I would. I’d do it for anyone, really, if I could. It’s just there are these rule things that I can’t ignore.”

Sherlock frowned. “What rules? John wasn’t killed by a god.”

“No, but he was killed by the instruments of a god.” Hades scrunched her face at the technicality. “You should’ve seen Athena, all in an uproar about where her precious weapons got to. She even came to ask if _I’d_ seen them. I reminded her quite plainly of how little I get out of this dreary place.”

"There's got to be a way," Sherlock said.

They passed into a crumbling stone corridor lined with faded tapestries. Hades shook her head. "I'm sorry, love. I wish I could help."

Sherlock stopped her, the sense of desperation growing inside his chest. "What do you want in exchange? I'll get you anything. _Do_ anything."

Hades patted his hand in sympathy. "This isn't your Twelve Labors, Sherlock. I can't just defy the other gods and raise up whomever I wish."

"But last time--"

"Last time I broke the rules over Persephone. I can't do it again. Not even for you."

“I just want the same chance you had with her,” Sherlock said.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Hades said with a roll of her eyes. “Persephone! Don’t get me started on her.”

“Oh, looks who’s talking,” came an annoyed voice from the chamber at the end of the hall.

They emerged into the center of what Sherlock supposed to be Hades’ palace. The walls were hung with dark drapes. Candelabras and chandeliers gave the room a grim sort of light, as one might expect in a mausoleum. Two ebony thrones were placed at the head of the room, one for Hades and one for her bride.

The bride in question was garbed in a midnight blue gown, her curly hair arranged perfectly about her shoulders. She stood beside a feast table that, in contrast to the one in Tartarus, was laden with hot, fresh food that smelled divine.

“Hello, Persephone,” Sherlock said.

She made a disgusted face. “Only my mother and the other gods call me that. It’s Sally to my friends, Sherlock.”

Sherlock frowned. “I’m your friend now?”

“What counts for a friend these days,” Sally sighed, exorbitantly dramatic. “Hades isn’t exactly the sparkling example of chivalry and romance I once knew. Did you know she offered to take me to the Egyptian Land of the Dead for our anniversary?”

Hades folded her arms and pouted. “It was supposed to be a working holiday. Thought I could learn a few things from that Osiris chap.”

“This place is bad enough,” Sally complained. ”Why would I want to go _there_?

Hades shrugged helplessly at Sherlock. “She’s a madwoman, honestly.”

“ _She’s_ a madwoman?” Sherlock asked.

Hades threw up her hands. “All right, perhaps I’m not so innocent, being the Lord of the Dead and everything! Is it my fault what the stresses of the job do to me?”

Sherlock massaged his forehead with one hand and looked up. “I’m not here to listen to your domestics. I’ve come for John. That’s all I care about.”

“Oh, Hades, you didn’t tell me he’d lost someone!” Sally said, concern suddenly rising in her face.

“I’m taking care of it,” Hades grumbled.

“Just look at him,” Sally said sorrowfully. “Oh, darling, can’t you do anything?”

“Not this time.”

Sherlock looked to Hades. “Can I see him, at least?”

“You’re my brother’s son. Of course you can see him,” Hades said. “He’s passed to the Elysian Fields, where all heroes go. He now exists in his idea of perfect happiness. It’s not a bad place, all told.”

Even Sally nodded at that. “She’s right, Sherlock. He’s not suffering or anything.”

Sherlock felt his fists squeeze tight. “I want to see him.”

Hades gave him a sympathetic look and gestured toward an archway off to one side. “He’s just through there.”

Sherlock could have sworn the arch hadn’t been there even a minute earlier, but then the rules of the Underworld did not follow the rules of the natural world. The hallway it opened to was filled with thick-leafed foliage.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” Hades said. “Take all the time you need.”

Sherlock left them in the chamber and did not glance back. The path led him into a dense, dark undergrowth of plants. He pushed apart the rigid fronds and tried his best to follow the thin trail that seemed to mark the ground, unsure of what he would find on the other end.

Perfect happiness? What was John’s perfect happiness? A grand palace, he supposed, filled with attractive men and women eager to offer themselves to John. Daily fights with hordes of faceless enemies so that he might impress his devoted adorers. Sumptuous food available at all times, beautiful clothes to dress himself in, and every possible comfort.

And a bed, Sherlock glumly thought. The simplest thing imaginable that he hadn’t been able to provide for John, even with all his gifts.

The brush grew thicker as Sherlock crowded through it. Was he even on the path anymore? Broad green leaves slapped him across the face in the dimness and the branches were growing heavier. He didn’t much care for the idea of getting lost in the Underworld. Who knew what spirits he might run across? Hades would have to come find him and--

A light was suddenly visible between the stalks. Sherlock shoved them aside and abruptly arrived at the edge of a forest clearing.

A campfire was glowing warmly in its center, shining golden light on two bedrolls spread out for the evening. Overhead, thousands of brilliant stars streaked the night sky, framed by dark trees rustling gently in a pleasant breeze. John stood tending the fire with a long stick. He looked as he ever did, wearing his trousers, boots, and faithful vest.

Seeing him standing there, as if it were any other evening, stole the breath from Sherlock.

John looked up at Sherlock when he heard the snap of the brush, and a smile broke over his face.

“There you are,” John said. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”

Sherlock swallowed with difficulty. Did John know where he was?

“I caught plenty of fish,” John went on brightly, pointing to a few slabs of white meat cooking on a rock in the fire. “You must be starved after your trip. Is Mycroft doing well?”

“He’s fine,” Sherlock said stiffly. “Thank you.”

John set down his stick. His brows drew together. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said.

“It’s just you sound a little strange.”

“I’m fine.”

John’s mouth twisted doubtfully. “Well, come on then. It’s quite nice here by the fire.”

Sherlock strode across the clearing toward the campfire, straight to John, and wrapped him up in his arms for a deep and passionate kiss. John made a noise of surprise, clearly not expecting such a reaction. He was warm and solid to Sherlock’s touch, and very much as he had felt in life.

John’s hands slid round Sherlock’s waist, reassuringly stroking up and down his back. The John in his arms was the same to kiss and the same to hold, and Sherlock tried to blot away all thoughts of the cold, lifeless version he'd left behind in Corinth. He felt like he was being strangled from the inside out, as if the unutterable relief of finding John would itself destroy him. He would gladly be destroyed by John. He could not think of anything he wanted more.

The kiss turned into a nuzzle as Sherlock inhaled the familiar, comforting scent of him. He pressed his forehead to John’s, committing it to an unalterable memory.

“You sure you’re all right?” John whispered.

Sherlock managed a laugh. “Never better,” he said.

John pulled back and looked up at him with fading concern in his blue eyes. “Then let’s eat," he said. "I didn’t spend all morning fishing to let it burn up in the fire. You could do with some meat on your bones.”

Sherlock couldn't help the quirk of a smile tugging at his mouth. “You say that with startling regularity, you know.”

“Do I?" John mused, slipping from his grasp. "It must be true, then.”

Sherlock took a seat by the fire and indulged himself with watching John as he tended to the crisped filets. John handed him a hot piece of fish wrapped in a large leaf so that he wouldn't burn himself. It smelled as good as any food from the living world, and Sherlock's stomach growled for want of a decent meal. He couldn’t recall eating since John's body had been brought to him. He ignored his hunger, though, remembering that eating it would trap him in the Underworld permanently.

“You know, I was thinking about this business with Dregan,” John was saying as he chewed his own portion. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to go negotiate with him tomorrow. Last time I wound up--”

“--hiding in a tree all night, covered in mud," Sherlock said. "I remember.”

John blinked. "Right. Anyway, I think we should draw him out. Catch him in the act, so to speak. I think he could do with a good thrashing."

"Mmm," Sherlock hummed, half-listening.

“Not good?” John asked, nodding at Sherlock's untouched food.

Sherlock set the fish aside. “Not hungry.”

"If you'd prefer rabbit, I can go check my snares," John offered.

"I'm fine. Really.” Sherlock glanced over at him. “Would you say you’re happy, John?”

“Happy?”

“Yes.”

The question seemed to puzzle John. He surveyed the little camp. “Well, I’ve got a fire and a bedroll, and a warm meal, and the night is clear and the stars are out. And I’ve got you here, now. So yeah, I’d say I’m rather happy. Why?”

“No reason,” Sherlock said. “Just wondering.”

“Are you happy, too?”

He asked in earnest, and Sherlock had not been prepared for the question to be turned on him. He frowned as he thought about his answer.

“Happier than I ever thought I could be,” he admitted.

John smiled at that. These sorts of talks didn’t happen often, back in the land of the living. It was freeing, somehow, to be here and ask John questions that he’d never otherwise broach. As if it didn’t count to ask. Sherlock drew up his knees and before he could think what to say next,  another question bubbled out of him.

“Do you prefer them?” he asked quietly. “Your other partners?”

John’s brow went into a furrow. “Sherlock?”

“Do you?”

“I-- No.” He appeared sincerely alarmed. “Did you think that?”

Sherlock just gazed at him, probably looking as wounded as he felt.

John set aside the remnants of his meal and came over to sit beside Sherlock on his bedroll. He looked profoundly distressed as he took up Sherlock’s hand. It took him a moment to find his words again.

“I miss you terribly when we’re not together,” John said. “I’d be at your side every second if I could. And when I can’t, I-- I suppose it’s how I work it out. Like getting into a brawl or something.”

“Stimulus to take your mind off things,” realized Sherlock.

“Right.”

Sherlock digested that. "So you don't-- you're not--"

"Not what?"

"Never mind."

“Hey. Come here.” John tugged at Sherlock’s shirt, pulling him in to rest against his shoulder. "This is where I want to be. Nowhere else. Do you believe me?”

His throat grew thick. The Elysian Fields didn’t lie. John had recreated his own greatest happiness, and it was Sherlock alone.

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “I believe you.”

His eyes fell to the chunk of fish John had prepared for him, hot and flaking from the bone. One bite of it would imprison him here forever. As John held him, without war or politics or other people’s problems to get in their way, the idea of staying there with him was sorely tempting.

But what he wanted most, he reminded himself, was John alive with him. Not some theater scene constructed out of their happiest moments.

“John," Sherlock said.

“Hmm?”

Sherlock sat upright. John’s eyes on him were soft and sentimental. Sherlock felt a pang of regret that he need shatter such a look. He reached out to stroke a thumb across John’s cheek.

“Do you remember where you were before this?” he gently asked. “Just before?”

“Well, yeah. I was just over at--” John clamped his mouth shut and frowned. He blinked momentarily. “I could’ve sworn I was at…”

“Do you remember catching those fish?” Sherlock asked.

Hardness returned to John’s gaze as he worked through the question and found the answer wanting. “Not really,” he said.

“Do you remember lighting the fire? Spreading the bedrolls? Preparing the fish and setting them to cook?”

John’s respiration was rising. He scanned the trees all around before looking back to Sherlock. “No, I don’t.”

He was on the verge of a panic. Sherlock reached out to hold him steady. “John. Think very carefully. What’s the last thing you remember?”

John grabbed hold of Sherlock’s arms, grounding himself against something real and present. He looked down and shook his head slowly from side to side as he fought through the tangle of false memories. Slowly, John’s left hand slid from its grip on Sherlock. John pressed it thoughtfully to the center of his chest, right where the spear had pierced him.

He looked up. “Sherlock, am I dead?”

“Yes, John.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t remember this time.”

“No.”

John touched Sherlock’s shirt as if he weren’t sure whether it was an illusion. “You’re here. You’re here?”

“I came for you,” Sherlock said, smiling despite the ache that threatened to split his chest in two. “I’m taking you home with me.”

“I can’t go,” John murmured.

Sherlock glowered. “What do you mean you can’t go?”

“I can’t go,” John said again.

“You bloody well can,” Sherlock insisted. “Come on.”

Sherlock wrenched John to his feet and dragged him back toward the dim forest that surrounded them. He was relatively sure it was the same direction he’d entered from, going by the stars, and he promptly began crashing a path back through the brush toward Hades’ palace. He kept an unbreakable grip on John’s hand, and together they--

They were in the clearing again. The same fire, the same discarded piece of fish right where Sherlock had left it beside his bedroll.

“I can’t go,” John said.

“Shut _up_ ,” Sherlock replied.

The stars must have spun him around. He pulled John back into the woods, this time choosing the direction he was certain about. The plants seemed to grow thicker, as if urging Sherlock to turn about, which he took as a good sign. He punched his way through the fronds, snapping them off entirely in his desperation to get John--

The clearing again. The fire. The bedrolls. Sherlock was breathing heavily, scanning the tree line for something he’d missed. This wasn’t possible. He was the bloody son of Zeus and he could outsmart one overworked, overconfident god of the Underworld.

“I can’t go. I know I can’t.” John looked up at him, astonished. “I’m not allowed.”

Sherlock turned, refusing to believe it. “We can do this. Just give me a moment to think!”

John pried Sherlock’s hand from his arm and instead took it up in his own. He reached out, trying to calm Sherlock. “It’s-- it’s fine. It’s fine. Sherlock, I’m here and I’m all right.”

“John,” he pleaded, because he didn’t know what else to do.

John smiled at him. “I want you to go and live a long, happy life. I’ll be here when you die an old man content in your bed.”

He couldn’t stop the tears from falling. He’d fought them, but he couldn’t any longer. John pulled him close, one hand at his cheek.

“I’m a demigod,” Sherlock whispered. “That could be a very long time from now.”

“I know,” John said.

Hot tracks burned his cheeks. Sherlock shook his head. “You’ll remember everything. You’ll be here waiting and you’ll remember.”

“I want to remember. I want to remember how I lived and how I died. I want to remember everything about you. Even this.”

“John. If this is the last chance to say it for an age...”   

His words died on his tongue. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say it. It was too much. He ducked his face into John’s neck and held him tight.

“I know,” John murmured, fingers softly stroking through his hair. “I love you, too.”


	8. Chapter 8

**S1, Ep08: "Darkness Rising"**

 

Mycroft walked through the war camp as a man amongst a graveyard. It was nearly emptied of the fighting men, gone to meet the enemy on the field of battle, save for the few brought back on litters or in shrouds. Servants and stewards rushed among the tents and dying fires, carrying supplies and fetching water. Mycroft had not seen the seneschal since yesterday and the royal guards were all dispersed. He walked alone through the wind-blown smoke. Any shouting was distant and fading. Banners snapped in the breeze. He did not have anywhere else to go.

The last reports numbered the enemy force between eighty and one hundred thousand. The Corinthians were fielding barely a third of the lowest estimate. The Corinthian army would fall, then the encampment would fall, then Corinth itself would be left to ashes. A logical, predictable series of events. The rationality involved wasn’t as comforting as it should have been.

Mycroft stepped aside to allow a pair of serving women in stained wool dresses to pass. They appeared determined in their task of hauling loads of fresh-torn linen bandages, and although they glanced at Mycroft, they held no recognition of their king. Mycroft supposed the noble thing to do was follow after them and offer to help in any way he could, but it seemed little use to bother.

He made his way toward the tent he had set aside for Sherlock. He’d kept his word and ordered that none should enter and disturb John’s body while his brother was away. It had become a moot point once the assault begun, as no one seemed particularly concerned with commencing funerary rites in the midst of catastrophe.

It was the only place remaining to Mycroft that was connected with his brother. Sherlock would return to a burned and sacked city and probably never know for sure what had become of Mycroft in the end. The least he could do was allow himself a proper goodbye, even if Sherlock wouldn’t be around to hear it.

But something curious occurred as Mycroft strode toward Sherlock’s tent. The flap of the door parted, and out wandered a dispirited-looking man in an overlong tunic with hair like burnished steel. The man sighed and folded his arms, then leaned against one of the support struts.

“What in Tartarus…” Mycroft murmured, before raising his voice to draw the man’s attention. “You there! What are you doing?”

The silver-haired man startled a bit, apparently unaware that Mycroft had witnessed him messing around in a restricted place.

“What were you doing in that tent?” Mycroft demanded. “No one is to go in there!”

The man’s dark eyes darted around. He was the shifty sort, with quick hands and a quick demeanor, and devilishly handsome to boot. Mycroft disliked him immediately. “Just getting some air, mate,” the man said.

“I’m not your _mate_ ,” Mycroft chided. “I am your king. Now answer me!”

“King?” the man asked. His eyes widened. “Right. You must be Mycroft. If you can’t even let Sherlock have a moment to himself in there, I’ll have to take him at his word that you’re an overbearing twat.”

Mycroft felt his heartbeat stutter. “Sherlock?”

“We just got back,” the man said.

“How on earth did you reach the camp? We’re surrounded on all sides!”

The man shrugged. “Hades gave us a lift. Popped us right back here.”

Mycroft narrowed his eyes. “And who are you, exactly?”

“Er, Lestrade. You might have heard of me.”

“I most certainly have _not_.”

“The King of Thieves?” Lestrade offered, raising his eyebrows as if Mycroft should recognize the epithet. “No? Nothing? Gods, I’ve known your brother for years. John, too.”

Mycroft sniffed indelicately. Sherlock hadn’t mentioned this riff-raff once. What else hadn’t he mentioned? It stung, deep down, that Sherlock saw so little need to loop him in.

“I must see to him,” Mycroft muttered.

Lestrade touched his arm and made him pause. “He’s in a bad way, mate. Hades wouldn’t let John go.”

“I told him as much before he left.” Mycroft glared evenly at this vagabond that Sherlock had somehow come to trust. “If you regarded him with any sort of fondness, you wouldn’t have let him come back here. You’ve doomed him in the process.”

“He wanted to be with John,” Lestrade said.

“You’ve doomed yourself, as well.”

“Maybe I have,” Lestrade admitted. “But he’s my friend, and he shouldn’t be alone.”

Mycroft watched him for a long and pendulous moment. “For what it’s worth,” he said finally, “thank you.”

He left Lestrade outside and made his cautious way into the tent. It was dim and quiet beneath the canvas canopy. The leftover debris of Sherlock’s earlier tantrum had been cleared up by the servants, on Mycroft’s orders, but the bed and John upon it had remained untouched. He still lay there, one arm folded over his stomach, pale and motionless as ever. Sherlock was reclined parallel to him on the bed, turned on one side so that he faced John’s silent form. The only movement was Sherlock’s thumb rhythmically stroking across the stiff knuckles of John’s hand. They looked like a pair ready for joint interment within a mausoleum.

“I don’t know what to say,” Mycroft started, because that was perfectly true.

Sherlock didn’t bother to respond.

Mycroft cleared his throat and moved closer. “No one disturbed the body. I hope you can tell as much.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Sherlock said. His voice was quiet and strained. “He’s gone.”

“Did you speak with him?” Mycroft asked.

Sherlock nodded fractionally, though his eyes stayed on John’s profile.

“I won’t pry into the details, but I can probably guess what it is he said. I would remind you to take it to heart. And remember that there are living people, here and now, who desperately need your help. You’re right that we mortals should learn to take care of ourselves. So I’ll ask you just once more, Sherlock. Aid us in this final fight, and I will never petition you again.”

Sherlock lifted his head at that. A deep sullenness lined his face. His eyes were lifeless as stone and missing the spark of action that usually drove him. Sherlock was a problem solver by nature, a man of energy and eagerness. This was heavier than the occasional moodiness that overtook him. This was fatal.

“Goodbye, Mycroft,” was all he said before lowering his head again.

Mycroft stormed out of the tent, ignoring the questions tossed his way by a confused Lestrade still standing vigil outside. He stalked across the grounds without heeding the passage of those on urgent errands, until finally he arrived back in the royal tent, now cleared of wounded men as the fighting pushed out beyond the barricades of the Corinthian camp.

Mycroft stood fuming for a short, terrible while. He made his decision, then he looked toward the heavens.

“I am not a praying man,” he said aloud. “There are few things I despise more than superstition. I know that the gods exist, and that we are often at their mercy, but I do not believe mortals should supplicate themselves to beings with so little regard for others.”

He folded his arms behind his back. “Nevertheless, here I stand with a plea to Zeus, king of the gods and all Olympus. I do not know if you can hear me. I do not know if you even care to listen. I speak to you now not as a king, but as a brother of one of your begotten sons.”

Mycroft shook his head angrily. “Can you not see the pain that he is in? Can you not understand the injustice of what Ares has done? If you ever loved your son, if you ever believed in him or took pride in his accomplishments, come forward and relieve his suffering. There is no one else to turn to.”

An oppressive silence followed. It was a long shot; a futile gamble. The gods did as they pleased, unbeholden to mortal men. Mycroft might have been ashamed of even considering such an overture but for his brother’s precedence above his dignity.

Mycroft sighed and looked to his desk. Preparations were in order. His final commandments needed writing up, should someone in the Corinthian bureaucracy survive to negotiate terms. The people of Corinth were first to consider. The women, the children, the slaves, and the cripples all cowering in the city, waiting for word that they were safe. Mycroft intended to see to it that they--

A flash of light and a crack of thunder abruptly split the air. Mycroft felt his body seize up and prickle all over with a fog of static, and when he looked up there was another man in the tent.

He presented a resplendent figure, with an oiled grey beard and robes woven from cloth of gold, silk, and a mercurial shimmering essence. Light seemed to emanate from the very air around him. Mycroft recognized him instantly, for his face was in one of the grandest temples of Corinth.

“There are few whose words might move me,” said Zeus. “Consider this a favor. One king to another.”

With a second crack of lightning, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Molly spurred her horse along the line of Corinthian archers, well back from where the hoplites clashed on the grassy field of the plain. They were holding the heart of the line against the swarming mass of Ares’ forces, but only just. As she galloped a shout went up to the archers, and another round of arrows thrummed their arcing paths above her head. The generals had little time for her questions about Irene’s whereabouts, and so she had begun the search on her own.

The rocky ridgelines above the valley seethed with the unified forces of the Thracians, the Spartans, and the Thessalonians. They streamed down from the hills like a tidal wave and the sounds of vicious warfare rose over the plain. Spears flew, shields smashed, and men and horses screamed for their lives.

Molly snapped her reins and scanned the battlefield for a palomino, but none of the horses in sight bore the gold-and-white coloration of Argo. She left the core phalanxes behind and wove into the trees adjacent to the field, urging her borrowed horse onward.

The Corinthians had mounted a rickety defense, clumping in small groups around defensible positions. Squadrons of men huddled among the trees and glanced up in surprise as Molly’s lone horse shot past.

She burst from the copse to find an open rill among the where more men fought. Then she saw it: Argo prancing and a dark-haired rider waving a sword about and shouting orders to an enemy troop. Molly steered her horse and heeled its ribs. They leapt through the Corinthian lines, soaring over the astonished faces of fearful soldiers. A handful of spears and arrows were slung her way, missing their marks by a long shot, but Molly was undeterred. Irene looked over just in time to see Molly streaming toward her. Irene's eyes went enormous and she braced herself as Molly leapt from her horseback and tackled Irene from her saddle. They tumbled down the nearby embankment together, rolling through loose dirt and sliding amongst prickly underbrush, until they reached a level patch and collapsed to a halt.

The sounds of the battle above rang on the other side of the hilltop. "Get off!" Irene grunted, shoving at Molly, but Molly clung to her in a smothering embrace. "Get OFF!"

"I won't," Molly said. She tightened her grip around Irene and resisted her flails. "Not until you _stop_ _this_."

“What are you doing here?" Irene hissed. "I told you to leave!”

“I’m not leaving you here. Whatever Ares told you, Irene, you can’t believe it. You mustn’t!”

Irene growled and pushed at her half-heartedly. She could have thrown Molly off without any trouble at all, but instead her fists pounded futilely against Molly’s shoulders. "What do you know of it? Of anything? You're just a simple girl from a nowhere village!”

Molly set her jaw and squeezed Irene harder. "I know enough to stop the legendary Warrior Princess from killing anyone else! It's not what you want, Irene. I know it's not."

“People die," Irene snarled.

Molly shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I know you. I know your heart. You still have a choice.”

Irene glowered up at her.

“Do you hear me?" Molly said, shaking her. "I know you!"

The downturn of her mouth changed into something else. Something deeply sorrowful and not a little bit broken. Irene stopped fighting Molly, her eyes going soft.

“My life is a trail of carnage,” she said. “I won't see you become part of it.”

“I _am_ part of it,” Molly told her. “You’ve made me stronger. You taught me to protect myself. To fight. That means I’ll fight for you, too.”

“I’ve got blood on my hands. So much blood.”

Molly pressed her mouth into Irene’s hair. “It doesn’t matter if no one else believes in you. I always will. Even if the world despises us.”

"Us," Irene murmured.

“Together,” Molly nodded. "We're the only ones left who can stop Ares. Will you help me?"

The steely resolve returned to Irene’s beautiful eyes as she considered the proposal. After a moment she held out her hand. Molly gripped it and, as one, they pulled each other to their feet.

 

* * *

 

John was cold. Sherlock didn’t like touching him like this, but he couldn’t _stop_ touching him. Each touch could be the last, and he didn’t want it to be the last. The John lying beside him was a ghost of what he was, and nothing like the vibrant, all-too-real shade he’d tracked down in the Underworld. His pallid face lacked everything that made John who he was. All the trappings of the man he’d loved and left behind were gone.

It hurt savagely. Sherlock wanted nothing more than to curl up beside what was left of John and wait out the years and decades. Centuries? How long would he live? He hadn’t a clue.

“Sherlock,” said a voice. “Sherlock, my boy.”

Sherlock dragged his eyes away from John and looked over his shoulder. A man stood at the opposite end of the darkened tent, though he seemed to be a light source all himself. The grey beard down to his chest and long hair might not have given him immediately away, but the shape of his eyes, the curve of his lips, the way his hair curled on end looked very much familiar. Things that Sherlock saw whenever he gazed into the reflection of a well-polished shield or a smooth-flowing river.

“Father?” Sherlock said.

Zeus nodded.

Sherlock pushed himself up and turned, swinging his legs over the bedside. He brushed back his hair from his eyes and took in the long-awaited arrival of the parent he’d never met. He’d had a thousand questions when he was a child. He still had questions, though he no longer knew whether he wanted them answered.

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked.

“Your brother interceded on your behalf,” Zeus said. “Your mortal brother, that is. Not your full-blooded brothers.”

Sherlock felt his jaw go taut. “Oh? Is that all it took? Years and years of asking and all I needed was for _Mycroft_ to say the magic word. Silly me, that I couldn’t work it out.”

Zeus gazed down at him imperiously. “It wasn’t a choice, my son. I am needed elsewhere almost constantly, but I always kept tabs on you as you grew and matured. Eventually I realized it would be more harmful than helpful to interfere. And look at you! You have grown into a hero revered across Greece, as you should be. You are my son. You are extraordinary.”

“Whatever I am,” Sherlock said, “it’s nothing to do with you. If I’ve accomplished anything, the reason is lying dead just over there.”

His father’s pale eyes skirted beyond his shoulder to glance at John.

“Ah, yes,” Zeus said, as if considering an unaccountable oddity. “The mortal.”

“Are you here to restore him?” Sherlock flatly asked. “If not, we have nothing more to discuss.”

“I’m afraid I cannot,” Zeus answered.

Sherlock bolted to his feet. “ _Then what use are you_?” he shouted. “King of the gods! All-powerful! And you can’t even--”

“It’s not because I cannot, but because I will not,” Zeus calmly replied. “The politics of Olympus are fragile at best. If I make an exception, there are factions that will grow angry. Factions of my own children who threaten the order of Olympus. Ares especially. I do not understand why you would risk such disorder, and all the repercussions it would have on the mortal world, for the revival of one man.”

“You risked the very same thing every time you seduced and tricked and deceived mortal women. My mother included!”

“Your mother was a beauty. I admit I could not resist her. The wrath of your step-mother Hera is not the same as an entire rebellion amongst the gods.”

“Are you blind to what Ares has already done?” Sherlock thundered. “He must have something terrible over you to get this far without punishment. Are you that impotent, even now? He’s destroying god and man alike, and once he’s done here in Corinth he’ll be coming for you. I guarantee it.”

Zeus appeared conflicted, and Sherlock knew he had found the correct pressure point. Ares was manipulating those both on Olympus and on earth. Something had to be done.

“What would you want in return?” Sherlock asked.

“I regret that it has come to this,” Zeus said. “Ares was an obedient son, once. I thought he might one day follow me upon the highest seat in Olympus. My hands are tied. I cannot be seen taking sides or exacting a decisive sentence.”

“We’ll kill him. You know we will,” Sherlock said. “You know it’s necessary, but that’s not what’s stopping you.”

Zeus eyed him meaningfully. “There must _always_ be a god of war, Sherlock. Where one falls, another must take his place.”

Sherlock blinked and processed the implication. Godhood. Being bound to Olympus. Rules. Bureaucracy. Immortality.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

Zeus looked more than a little surprised at Sherlock’s bold assertion. It was how a son should want his father to look at him, Sherlock thought. He’d craved such things as a youth. Now it seemed worth less than dust.

“Whatever you might think of me,” Zeus said, “know that you’ve made your father proud.”

Thunder rumbled and lightning flared, and in the blink of an eye Sherlock was alone again.

Or was he?

He turned as a wild, erratic pounding took up in his chest. Sherlock bounded onto the bed and knelt beside John’s body, running his hands along his cool flesh. He was pale as bone but Sherlock kept feeling his wrists, his forehead, his chest, but any sign of a pulse evaded Sherlock’s fingers. Had Zeus tricked him? Fooled him? Was he expecting Ares to be dealt with before John was--

John’s chest shuddered with a half-formed breath. Sherlock froze where he knelt and watched it happen again, his ribs expanding shallowly and constricting against the wrapping of bandages. Sherlock scrambled for a knife and cut swiftly through the bandages and pulled them away. They were soaked with blood on the interior, but beneath them was the clean, unbroken skin of John’s chest.

Another breath filled John’s lungs, and this time it was full and deep. Sherlock bowed over his head and listened as the air whistled between his lips and down his throat, then exhaled back out in a gust of the most wonderful, beautiful, achingly perfect _warmth_.

“John?” Sherlock asked, hands running down his skin to feel the heat of life beginning to seep through his muscles. “John? John, can you hear me?”

A pulse beat alive in his wrist. Sherlock palmed his chest, feeling the heartbeat there as well. His throat thrummed with the pumping of blood and Sherlock bit his own lip to keep from sobbing aloud.

John’s eyes drifted open. He took another long breath, his lashes blinking fully apart. His pupils moved and locked onto Sherlock’s face.

“Sherlock?” John wheezed.

Sherlock’s face contorted into a half-grimace, half-smile as he cradled John’s pinkening cheek. “I’m here. It’s all right. I’m here.”

John squinted and shifted his head. “What just--?”

“What do you remember?” Sherlock asked.

His eyebrows drew together and Sherlock chuckled for the daft familiarity of it. John was back. The John he knew.

“The Elysian Fields,” John said after a perplexed moment. “Saying goodbye to you around the fire. After that, sitting in darkness and silence. Gods, just waiting. Waiting for you. Are you dead now?”

Sherlock threaded his fingers affectionately through his hair. “No, John. You’re alive.”

“How?”

“My father.”

John processed the information for a second and looked up. His hands moved, grazing Sherlock’s waist with a tenuous, uncertain touch. “This is real?” John asked. “This is genuine?”

“Yes,” Sherlock told him.

John lurched forward to sit up. Sherlock backed away and helped him upright. John looked a bit dizzy and tense as he glanced around at the living world once more. Their eyes met and John reached out, astonished, to touch Sherlock’s wet face, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was real.

“Gods, I love you,” John whispered.

There weren’t words. Sherlock fell into John’s arms, holding onto him as his senses were overwhelmed by the evidence of life. He’d truly thought it was the end. His chest burned with the mending of his heart, and he enveloped John with no intention of letting him go again.

“I’m here,” John murmured. “I’m here.”

 

* * *

 

The sound of horses galloping outside the tent rattled the frame of the tent as John was strapping the sword belt round his waist. The leather breastplate he wore chafed round the neck and under the arms, and if given the choice he would have opted not to wear it. It limited his range of motion and besides, what were the odds of being killed twice in precisely the same way only days apart? But Sherlock had been deadly adamant about him wearing protection.

The sword found its balance at his hip, and John turned. “Ready?”

“All set here,” said Lestrade. He flipped his new knives in both hands before tucking them into his belt. He’d nicked someone’s riding leathers and looked annoyingly put together despite the borrowed clothes.

Sherlock was standing at a far table with his back to them, finishing up his delicate work.

“Sherlock?” John prompted.

Sherlock turned. He tossed away the rag that had been soaked in hind’s blood, now washed clean by his chemical processes, and handed them each an ampoule of diluted blood. “Coat your weapons thoroughly once it’s time,” Sherlock instructed. “Be careful not to break it or lose it, because we won’t be getting any more.”

John shook the small glass phial. It really didn’t look like so much blood. Perhaps enough for a thin film along one side of his blade, or a good dab on the tip. Nevertheless, he tucked it into a trouser pocket and looked up. “Shall we, then?”

As a group they marched from the tent. John blinked at the brightness radiating from the sky, feeling like a man emerging from a cave after too long in its depths. His muscles still felt slightly strange to his senses, as if he weren’t used to carrying around so much weight. Sherlock said he’d been dead for nearly three days, and yet his time in the Elysian Fields had felt like an eternity.

Sherlock shot him an anxious look as they reached the horses prepared for them. John smiled back at him for the thousandth time, wondering when he would finally be assured that John was indeed returned from the Underworld and had no intention of returning anytime soon.

They mounted the horses and trotted through the Corinthian encampment and out onto the field beyond. Troupes of exhausted soldiers were resting near the fortified pilings, taking water and what little rations they had at hand. Many were bloodied and dirtied, and the rest appeared ready for a long sleep, but with so few soldiers on hand they would be turned out for another bout on the front lines soon enough.

They noticed Sherlock first.

“Almighty Olympus,” someone swore.

Heads piqued upward. Eyes dim with weariness caught sight of Sherlock at the lead. The soldiers began scrambling to their feet, wanting a better glimpse of the legendary demigod come to support their numbers. Murmurings began, and then they spotted John just behind.

"He’s alive,” said a voice, entirely astonished.

“Irene killed him,” said another.

“He was a corpse, I swear to Hades!”

“Sherlock’s done it,” someone proclaimed.

“It’s a miracle!”

“He’s come to save us!”

“Sherlock!”

“ _Sherlock_!”

The voices grew into a chanting of Sherlock’s name, and John couldn’t help but smile.

“Kill that bugger!”

“Justice for Corinth!”

Sherlock glanced back at John, fierce with resolve. The time had come. It was going to be Ares, or it was going to be them.


	9. Chapter 9

**S1, Ep09: “Full Circle"**

 

The Corinthian soldiers were looking at John as if he were something marvelous. Miraculous. Sherlock agreed wholeheartedly, but the expressions of astonishment on their faces went beyond awe. They looked reverent.

They stood, one by one, to join the procession of three horses toward the battlefield. Wounded men, bleeding men, men burned and blackened by smoke. The tired and the weary, the hopeless and the spent. The Corinthian army was rising again.

It was also unhelpfully distracting. Sherlock needed speed and surprise on his side if they were to stand a chance against Ares, and an enormous company of the inspirited following him was about as useful as lighting a gigantic bonfire and announcing his position.

Lestrade looked slightly alarmed, likely because any crowd of that size was usually trying to run him out of town. There wasn’t much Sherlock could do about it, and John had that proud grin on his face and a twinkle of warmth in his eyes. Sherlock saw no reason to deter those reactions after so long without them, so he directed his attention instead to getting on with things and scouting the decimated terrain.

The wheels of his mind cranked into full mechanical wonder. Sherlock’s eyes skirted over the problem at hand: how to find Ares, how to outwit a god and deliver a fatal blow, how to do it all before the Corinthians were overwhelmed. For surely they were becoming so. Soldiers were clashing across the plain and the Corinthian line was holding, but Sherlock easily identified the weak spots where bulges of Thracians and Spartans and Thessalonians were breaking through. The enemy had ten of thousands in reserve, and if those beating on the Corinthians did not take them down, there were ten times the number ready to take up their places.

“What do you think?” John asked, reining up to ride beside him.

“I think there isn’t much to work with here,” Sherlock observed. “We don’t know where Ares is located, though you can bet it won’t be far. The men afield are going to die before we can find him.”

John frowned. “Sherlock, you can’t let that happen.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Sherlock asked. “Should we step in and kill ten thousand each? They’ll still be overrun. We should be focusing our efforts on finding Ares, not getting bogged down in pointless minutiae.”

“It’s not _minutiae_ ,” John said. “These are the people we’ve come to save.”

“It’s Ares we’re after,” he grumbled.

John gave him a sharp look. “Sherlock. What’s the point of killing him if everyone else is already dead? Tell him, Lestrade.”

Behind them, Lestrade’s eyes went even bigger. “Oh, no,” he said. “I’m not taking sides in this lover’s spat. I’m here to help, as promised. That’s all.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “The point is, John, that killing Ares is a condition of your revival. If I fail, Zeus might very well renege on our deal and reverse his decision.”

John went pensive. “I’d be dead again."

“I fear so.”

He frowned. “I don’t care.”

Sherlock blinked. “Pardon?”

“I don’t care if it means we lose Ares,” John insisted. “These are your brother’s people. They got wrapped up in this mess because of us. We’ve antagonized Ares for ages. They don’t deserve to be punished for it, so get on with saving them or I’ll go do it myself.”

Sherlock narrow his eyes at John. “You’re bluffing.”

“I bloody am not.” John tapped his leather breastplate. “I’ll even take off this stupid armor.”

They stared each other down. Lestrade shifted awkwardly on his horse.

“What’ve we got, John?” Sherlock said finally. “Nothing of any use. A failing army, some grass in a field. Woods over there. The hills. A few ballistae that take more time to load than can be spared."

“Yeah, but we’ve got the men, haven’t we?” asked Lestrade.

John glanced at those filing around them, readying themselves to take up the spear and sword in defense of Corinth. To be butchered by the combined might of the Thessalonian, Thracian, and Spartan forces in some inspired act of sacrifice.

“If only they had anywhere to go but to die,” John said.

But Sherlock wasn’t listening any longer. The rest of John’s words were lost as he struck a sudden idea.

“I know how to do it,” Sherlock breathed.

“What was that?” Lestrade said.

Sherlock looked between John and Lestrade. “I know how to save them.”

Their brows puzzled together. They didn’t see it. It was so obvious, but they didn’t _see_.

It was simpler just to show them.

“Soldiers of Corinth, to me!” Sherlock shouted. He raised an arm and drew the soldiers’ attention. Their weary faces rose to his command and Sherlock heeled his horse into a sudden gallop, riding a circuitous route around them so as to draw everyone’s attention. He spun his horse in place and pointed toward the hills, away from where the battle raged.

He received a number of confused looks, but the gathered soldiers’ faith in Sherlock’s legendary reputation seemed win them over. It was a useless and drudging thing, sometimes, to be known wherever he went, but on occasions like this Sherlock wouldn’t have given it up for anything.

“What in the bloody name of Tartarus is he doing?” he heard Lestrade remark to John.

“Hades help me, I haven’t a clue,” John said. “I’m usually the last to know.”

Sherlock reined up beside them and smirked at John. “I’m doing exactly what you asked of me, John. Saving lives. Now come on!”

They led the soldiers on a march up into the hills. John and Lestrade attempted to maintain a sense of casual confidence as they rode behind Sherlock, probably so as not to alarm the men trailing behind them. Sherlock stood up in his saddle now and then as they climbed higher into the rocky reaches the overlooked the Corinthian plain. He tutted often and rode up and down the line, checking on things from all angles, much to the amusement of everyone present. Sherlock rolled his eyes at that; let them be entertained as long as they did as he asked.

At last they came to the crest of the hill. Far down below the battle was as ants on a patch of green, the trees like tiny sprigs and the sounds of warfare only a distant echo. The Corinthians were be pressed back by the combined enemy forces, a wavering line on the field that was close to breaking.

“Line up all along the ridge,” Sherlock ordered. “Get every man a haft or a pole. Cut the saplings if you need to. We’re going to stop this war with the aid of Greece herself.”

“Stop it how, my lord?” asked one of the soldiers.

Sherlock pointed to the fields of boulders and dry, cracked earth of the slope. “Landslides are common in these hills. The slate is loose and it only takes a few prods in the right pressure points to get one going. We’re going to make one for the ages. We’re going to cut off the invaders.”

“You can’t be serious,” said another soldier.  
  
Sherlock glanced at him. “I’m quite serious.”

“It’s never going to work,” scoffed a one-eyed veteran.

“It’s impossible!” cried another.

“Oi!” John admonished, urging his horse forward. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said those exact things to Sherlock over the years, and how many times I’ve been proven wrong. This is the man who defeated the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, the Stymphalian Bird. He’s traveled to lands you’ve never heard of and seen more wonders that you can imagine. He commands the respect of gods and men, and he’s here now to help you in your hour of need. You are soldiers of the proud city of Corinth. Do you at least have the courage to try?”

Sherlock smiled at John. Slowly, the weary soldiers looked at one another, and in due course they began filing into a line along the hilltop. Some pulled out their walking staves or broke the heads off their spears, cutting limbs and branches from the wiry trees for the rest. Sherlock dismounted and moved from man to man, pointing out where precisely to lever the rock and jab at the stones for maximum effect. John and Lestrade took up positions as well, sending stones rolling. John grinned brightly at Sherlock when he passed. Seeing John there, sun-touched with a shine of healthy sweat on his arms, sent an ache of relief through Sherlock’s chest once more.

The men got together for the largest stone. Sherlock ran in circles about them, pointing out just where to apply pressure and where to leave off.

“That’s it,” Sherlock called to them.

A great cracking erupted from the hillside as the entire face of the hill seemed to slough from its stony underlayer. Boulders began their slow tilting rolls down toward the valley, the weight and displacement of them loosening rock and dirt and wiry, dead trees. Earth and stone went thundering and rumbling down the face of the slope in a swiftly accumulating wave.

The screams and shouts began immediately. The warriors clashing in the field draw apart in sudden frantic patterns, and even from this distance Sherlock could make out the unmistakable signs of panic. The noise was too loud to be ignored, and as the sweeping wall plowed toward the soldiers they fled. The landslide plowed through the center of the field, dividing the armies and creating an rocky, impassable field of haze and earth.

The men all around Sherlock broke into loud and hearty cheers. They slapped him on the back and shook hand with each other as they watched the battle broken up by their work.

“Save the life,” Sherlock said to John.

John beamed and nodded. “Save the life.”

“Now to save yours,” Sherlock said. “Permanently. I’ll hunt Ares down if it’s the last thing I do.”

When they marched back down to the Corinthian lines, the dusty, dirty soldiers were in a near uproar.

“Zeus himself intervened!”

“It was Hera!”

“Artemis doesn’t like battle scarring her land.”

“It was Sherlock!”

“Sherlock?”

“He’s saved us!"

The hollering spread among the soldiers as Sherlock, John, and Lestrade dismounted. No doubt the men at arms would grow some tall tale about what had actually happened, assigning some sort of supernatural occurrence to what was a very straightforward operation.

One of the field commanders wasn’t having any of it, though. He made his way over to where they were standing by the horses, grim-faced.

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock said.

“You could have killed my men,” the commander chastised, in direct contrast with the elation of those around him.

“They were intelligent enough to move, it seems.”

The commander frowned. “This won’t hold them forever. They’ll be back through the woods once they’ve regrouped, or through the hills.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “It’ll hold them long enough for me to finish things.”

The commander eyed him skeptically. “I hope your brother is right about you.”

“So do I,” said Sherlock.

Water and rations were in order for John and Lestrade. Sherlock wasn’t feeling peckish, however, as he considered his troubling next move.

“Still don’t know where to find him, do you?” Lestrade asked, leaning back on a camp chair.

Sherlock stroked his chin. “No. I suppose I could try drawing him out.”

“If he hasn’t sought you out by now, he’s not going to,” advised John. “And besides, we’ll want to fight him on our terms. Keep the element of surprise.”

“He’s got a point,” said Lestrade.

“ _John_?”

It was a woman’s voice, and quite familiar. The three of them turned.

“Molly? Irene?” John asked.

Sure enough, it was them. Molly was looking at John with a shocked expression on her face, and behind her Irene stood wearing a cloak and abashedly looking out from the drawn hood.

“We heard you were resurrected,” Molly said, “but… gods, it’s good to see you!”

John blinked as Molly ran forward to hug him. He patted her back, frowning slightly. “I thought-- they said Irene went over--”

Molly pulled back. “She did. Briefly. But I got her back.”

The all looked at Irene.

“It’s good to see you well, John,” Irene said.

John looked between them, and for a moment Sherlock wondered if he begrudged Irene for what had happened. He’d said he remembered everything, down to the feel of Athena’s spear as it punctured his chest. It was rare to see Irene cowed in any way, but as she waited for John’s response there was an unmistakable element of shame in her eyes.

“No hard feelings," John finally said, giving Irene a tight nod. “Happens from time to time in our line of work.”

Irene’s mouth crept into a small smile. She nodded.

“This might have worked to our advantage, actually,” Sherlock said. He looked to Irene. “We need to find Ares. That’s most important right now. Do you know where he is?”

“He’s camped at a small shrine southeast of here,” Irene said. “But what’s the point if we can’t kill him?”

Sherlock pulled a phial of hind’s blood from his belt. “We can.”

 

* * *

 

Ares had set up his position hidden among a rundown, open-air temple. The stones were worn and mossy and the altarpiece worn clean of most of its carvings by wind and rain, but despite its state it was still consecrated to the god of war. Dusk hung low on the horizon, casting shadows among the circle of blazing pyres surrounding the black throne within the shrine. Ares sat upon it, his long sword pitched into the earth, looking curiously indifferent for one whose army had recently been routed.

Irene casually sauntered toward the god of war, one hand resting on the chakram at her belt. Ares had gifted it to her years ago as a reward for her service. Its edges now glinted with the faintest hint of dried blood.

Ares looked up as he saw her on approach. “Irene, my dove,” he said idly. “How goes your assault?”

She stopped at the foot of the grassy paver stones that formed the stair to the altar. “Poorly,” she said with irritation. “Those under my command fled in terror. It seems Sherlock has joined the battle.”

“Sherlock?” Ares mused, his eyebrows arching higher. He rose from his throne. “So soon? I expected a showing from him eventually, of course, but this is beyond what I thought him capable. How interesting.”

Irene folded her arms and glowered up at him. “You promised me he was off the table. I can deal with an army of inept townsmen, but a demigod is something else entirely.”

Ares wandered down the stone steps toward her. “Are you telling me you aren’t a match for my beloved half-brother?”

“I’m telling you it’s not going to be a cake walk anymore,” she said. “This is something _you_ ought to be dealing with.”

Ares smirked and folded his arms behind his back. “You know very well it’s against the rules for me to kill him personally. That’s why I got myself a weapon. A Warrior Princess who can slaughter thousands in her sleep.”

“You always were a flatterer,” Irene purred. Her hand slipped lower to grasp her chakram.

“Darling,” he cooed, “I am so much more than that.”

She made a sudden move to strike with her chakram, and everything screeched into slow motion. Ares’ black eyes were on her but he seemed to know what she was planning to do, and before she had even pulled the blood-coated weapon from her belt his arm was up and his long sword was soaring through the air to clash steel-on-steel with her disc. A magnificent shower of sparks flashed where the weapons met, as if the very embers of Hephaestus’ forge.

Irene’s grab for her chakram was a signal all its own. Three blood-tipped knives came spinning from the shadows of the wood. Ares shoved Irene away with his godly strength and twirled his long sword, blocking each of the knives and scattering them to the ground. Lestrade appeared from the darkness, striding through the pyrelight as he flung another set, but Ares deflected those with the same untroubled ease. With a gleeful grin Ares threw out an arm and a blast of energy tossed Lestrade halfway across the clearing, slamming him into one of the pylons of the altar stone.

Irene was on her knees, breathing hard and fast. Ares playfully lifted his sword over his shoulder and shot her an impish smile. “For instance, I can tell when you’re lying through your teeth, my pet. You’ve got the smell of _her_ all over you.” He glanced over to where Lestrade was groaning on the ground. “You might as well come out, brother dear. I know you’re here.”

Sherlock appeared at the edge of the ring of light. Molly stood beside him.

“You’ve both been a thorn in my side long enough,” Ares sighed. “What say we have a proper fight, and I can claim your miserable ends as a right of self-defense.”

“I’ll be happy to end this here and now,” Sherlock said. He raised his hands, empty but for a small red phial. “No weapons. Just this.”

Molly, equally weaponless, nodded alongside Sherlock.

Ares dropped his sword arm, threw his head back, and howled with laughter. “This is Sherlock’s brilliant plan?” he hooted. “Come at me with a bit of blood? At least your miserable friends here thought to put it on a sharp edge. Honestly, I used to think you were _clever_...”

“Clever enough,” Sherlock said.

Ares’ eyes went wide and he whipped around, just in time to summon his weapon again and block an incoming strike from John’s bloody blade. John appeared alarmed by the superhuman response to his attack, having crept unnoticed toward the god as Sherlock drew his attention, but it seemed even the element of surprise two times over wasn’t enough to take Ares off guard.

“Er, hello,” John said.

“You!” Ares shouted. Enraged, he pushed the swords aside and grabbed John violently by the throat, choking him. “You’re supposed to be DEAD! Why can’t you stay _dead_?”

“Bad habit, I guess,” John rasped.

“Think you’re a funny one, don’t you?” He throttled John with ire set deep in his eyes. “Let me tell you something, mortal. I learned your idiotic tricks long ago. You, the _two_ of you, you’re so predictable--”

Ares screamed. He dropped John and spun, revealing one of Lestrade’s knives sticking out from his back. Right in the kidneys. Right when Irene had shown her. Ares gurgled in rage and found Molly quivering just behind him, another knife in her hand. He lurched toward her, grabbing at her, but the hind’s blood on the dagger was already doing its work. Ares frothed and fell, snarling at Molly. The one person he hadn’t seen as a threat. The one person right under his nose, in plain sight, who mattered most in the entire plan.

Irene smiled.

Sherlock came to stand over Ares as he lay dying. “Our father sends his regards, _brother dear_.”

A red, pulsing aura seemed to surround Ares. He wavered like a mirage, like something no longer able to sustain its power, and in an enormous, shuddering blast of darkness, Ares was no more.

Irene stood as a soft rain began to fall. Ares had left a dark scorch mark in the grass where he had perished, the only remnant his Olympus-forged sword stuck into the ground. Lestrade came down the steps, rubbing at his back. John had got to his feet and Molly was still clutching the last knife, its tip shining red. Irene blinked and breathed. She had done it. She had freed herself of the shadow over her life, as she had sworn to do. And yet again she had her friends to thank for it.

“Is he dead?” Molly hesitantly asked.

“Yes,” said Sherlock. He was staring at the sword.

“Well done, Molly,” Lestrade told her. “Quiet as a mouse. You’d make a fine thief.”

“I think I’ll stick to my songs and stories,” Molly said. Her hand opened, shaking, and dropped the knife.

“Was that the first time, Molly?” John gently asked. “That you… you know. Ended someone’s life.”

“Yes,” said Irene.

“Well,” said John, visibly impressed. “Go big or go home, I suppose.”

Lightning flashed in the sky overhead. Thunder rumbled in its wake, and the rain was pattering harder now. Sherlock was still standing beside the sword.

“It’s time,” Sherlock said.

“Time for what?” Lestrade asked. “A bloody long nap?”

Something wasn’t right. John’s brow furrowed as he realized it, too. “Sherlock, what are you doing?” John said.

Sherlock looked up at John, pain in his expression. Thunder crashed again, almost insistently. “Someone must take up the sword,” Sherlock said. “There must be a god of war.”

“ _What_?” John demanded. He strode over to Sherlock. “You didn’t think to mention this?”

Sherlock bowed his head. “It was part of the deal, John. To get you back.”

“Sherlock, you hate the gods,” John argued. “You hate Olympus and everything it stands for. Your whole life, everything, has been about defying them.”

“It was part of the deal,” Sherlock said again.

John was shaking with rage. “What, you thought you’d just bring me back and then abandon me for godhood?”

“It’s a better alternative than leaving you in the Underworld,” Sherlock reasoned. “I’ll still see you every now and then, this way. I’ll know you’re well.”

“You selfish bastard," he gritted out.

“I am selfish,” Sherlock agreed. “But you’d do the same, John. I know that now.”

“It should be me,” Irene said.

Everyone looked her way, struck utterly silent. Sherlock and John red-faced and blinking, Lestrade mightily befuddled, and Molly agape with pale horror.

“You said ‘someone’ must take up the sword,” Irene went on. “That someone can be me. I’ve my own atonement to find. It should be me who is sentenced to making things right.”

“Irene, you can’t,” Sherlock said.

Irene glared at him. “Why not? We’ve all seen humans ascend to immortality. Usually for nefarious reasons. This can be the start of something different. Something good. A world where the god of war intimately knows the pain of their charge. Who better than me?”

She walked to the scorched mark in the ground where the gleaming sword was stuck. The weight of everyone she’d harmed, killed, maimed -- it was all on her shoulders. At least with power such as this, she might have the strength to bear it. And, if she were lucky, to rectify it.

Molly was at her side, tears in her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“I’m already cursed,” Irene told her with a wistful smile. “Might as well finish the job.”

They embraced. Irene held her close, inhaling her soft, flowery scent. Gods, how she’d miss her.

Molly looked up, her eyes steely and her cheeks wet. Irene wiped away a stray tear with her thumb.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said.

It was too late by the time Irene understood what she meant by that.

Molly suddenly turned in her arms and lunged toward Ares’ sword.

“ _No_!” Irene screamed.

But Molly’s hand clasped the grip. There was an enormous, blinding frisson of light and sound and tremoring and Irene wondered if the entirety of Olympus was coming down to crush them all.

Finally the din subsided. A white ethereal haze seemed to part before Irene’s eyes. She got to her feet, and there was Molly -- holding the sword of Ares, radiant in white leather, her hair plaited back like an Amazon’s, with a fierceness burning in her amber eyes.

“The world needs you, Irene,” she said. “They need you here. You’re a hero. Don’t forget that.”

Lightning flashed, and Molly was gone.

 

* * *

 

The celebrations back in camp lasted long into the night. Corinthian soldiers, wineskins in hand around the great roaring bonfires, told tales of the battle-craze fading from their enemies’ eyes when the god of war was slain. They spoke of bloodied weapons dropping to ground and looks of wonderment on their faces as they realized that they fought brother against brother. The siege was broken, the enemies dispersed, and a new day was set to dawn for Corinth. The will of the gods had been defeated by the mortal world.

The revelry went on for hours, full of drinking and feasting and music and women. Sherlock was sought by mobs of people, and some even came for John as well (though he suspected it was morbid curiosity to gaze on a twice-dead man). Garlands were flung at them, and more wine than any sane man would drink, and Mycroft even came to thank his brother for what he had done to save the city. Sherlock grew increasingly moody with every interaction, and John had to intercept the well-wishers until it was late enough that social courtesy allowed them to retire to their tent.

As music drowned the evening in its rhythms, they celebrated in the intimate recesses of their quarters. They came apart in each other’s hands, breathing words of thankfulness between the dark and frantic taking of lips and gripping of hair and marking of skin. They fell asleep after, wrapped close enough for the beating of their hearts to become one.

John woke to late morning light glowing outside the dim walls of the tent, the braziers and lamps long since cooled. He yawned and stretched beneath the weight of the bedding, bare skin brushing across shaggy fringes of fur and smooth reaches of linen. Warm and comfortable. A rare state for them both.

Beside him, Sherlock slept peacefully in his usual disarrayed perfection, his wild dark hair crowning him like the godhood with which he’d nearly cursed himself. John’s insides clenched at the very thought. They’d come so close to losing one another, each in their own way. But now they had another chance. Another life. John didn’t intend to waste another second of it wondering if he was worthy of being wanted by a demigod.

John rose up on his forearms and leaned over to gently kiss him.

Sherlock sighed as he woke. His eyes drifted open as John kissed him, and John felt the wandering touch of sleepy fingers at his waist. He pulled back and the dreamy look in Sherlock’s eyes told him he had cared for him well. Sherlock was at his most human in moments like these; soft and trusting as he gazed at John. A deep azure like the Aegean sea.

He brushed back Sherlock’s curls admiringly. “I could spend the rest of my days just looking at you," John hummed.

Sherlock smirked in amusement. “That would grow dull rather quickly for a man of action such as yourself.” His eyes flickered downward. “And I think I’d miss that cock of yours.”

John chuckled. “Starving for it, are you?”

Sherlock hooked his arms around John’s neck and smiled wickedly. “Like my own personal Tartarus.”

He pulled John down for a deeply enthusiastic snog. Their legs intertwined beneath the bed covers, and before John knew it they were idly rutting against one another, a slow and luxurious rolling of hips and stroking of skin. Sherlock was long and leanly muscled, blazing to the touch, scented like sweet wine and incense and masculine tang. He’d wanted nothing more since their partnership began, all those years ago. Somehow, he’d convinced himself that Sherlock’s silence on their status meant he didn’t care enough for monogamous commitment. How wrong John had been. Sherlock had nearly given up everything for him.

John came with a grunt, and Sherlock echoed him shortly after. The lay cocooned beneath the covers, breathing together and tremoring through the aftershocks. John shifted to slide aside, off of Sherlock, but the arm about his waist squeezed, stopping him from breaking contact.

“I’ve a mind to keep you here all day,” Sherlock rumbled.

“I’d say we’ve earned it,” John said. He adjusted himself, settling in against Sherlock for what appeared to be an unspoken request for a cuddle. “I haven’t thanked you. Properly. For bringing me back.”

“You thanked me quite properly last night,” Sherlock observed.

"Either way. Thank you."

"It was as much an act of selfishness as it was an act of charity.” His voice grew quieter. “I would move mountains for you, John."

"You did that just yesterday, as I recall,” John said. He placed a kiss against Sherlock’s cheekbone. “You are brilliant. Amazing. Breath-taking."

His face tinged faintly with a blush. Instead of answering, Sherlock took up John’s hand, lacing their fingers tightly together.

John gazed at their joined hands. "You and I. Is that truly what you want?"

Sherlock didn’t meet his eyes. "If I were to die today and go to the Elysian Fields, my realm would have nothing in it. I would have left my happiness here."

John smiled to himself. It was all he needed to hear.

“Do you think Irene will be all right?” he asked eventually.

Sherlock looked thoughtful. “She’s a warrior. She’s no stranger to hardship. With Molly’s divine help, maybe she’ll even find some peace.”

“I hope so. I hope they both do.”

“Molly’s actually quite fit for godhood,” Sherlock mused. “Highly compassionate, yet stubborn. She’ll bring a strong dose of empathy to Olympus. Maybe that’s precisely what they need.”

John hummed. “They need a swift kick in the arse, if you ask me. Ares or no Ares.”

“Don’t bother worrying about them, John. We’ve the right to at least _one_ day off.”

It was at that moment that the flap to the tent flew open, strewing bright sunlight into their eyes. Instantly on edge, John lurched upward in bed with one arm raised to block the light and see who had come to disturb them.

It was Archie.

“It’s the Macedonians, sir!” he excitedly announced. “They’ve sent a message!”

“Message?” Sherlock asked, rising up beside John. “What message?”

“The king is asking for your help!” Archie declared. “It’s a barbarian horde invading from the east! They’ve got ponies and swords and they’re massacring everyone and demanding tribute! That’s what the message said. They’ve need of heroes!”

John and Sherlock looked at each other.

“One day off, was it?” John asked.

“Well. One morning,” Sherlock said.

“I suppose that’s as much as we can ask for.” John glanced at the messenger boy. “Archie, tell them we’re on our way. It’ll take a few days’ travel to get there but… we’re coming.”

Archie nodded eagerly and dashed off. The tent flaps fell closed, dimming the light.

John sighed. “Now where’d you put my trousers?”

Sherlock wiped the stickiness off his stomach with the linen sheets and hopped out of bed. “How am I supposed to remember?”

John began cleaning himself up, as well. “One, you’re the one who took them off me. Two, you’re a massively intelligent demigod.”

“I only remember important things, John. The location of your trousers is decidedly _un_ important.”

John eventually found them stuffed into one of the empty water basins, which he judged to be Sherlock’s attempt at discouraging him from leaving their bed sooner than he’d like. They got themselves sorted, clothes-wise, and prepared to get going.

“So, that’s twice now that I’ve crossed into the great beyond,” John said as he hooked his left gauntlet.

“Plus the time you don’t remember,” Sherlock said absently as he straightened one boot.

John paused. “What time was that?”

Sherlock stood, blinking rapidly as he realized what he’d said. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“Sherlock?”

He walked past John and headed for the door flaps. “Ignore me.”

“When else did I die?” John demanded.

Sherlock slipped outside. “It doesn’t matter.”

John followed him out of the tent. “It really does!”

Off they went on their next grand adventure, full of death and danger and dazzling feats by the son of Zeus, and John knew he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

 

* * *

 

  
  


Discord, god of chaos, was bored out of his mind.

He’d already run the disciples of Ares out of the temple. He’d had his fun tormenting the leftover servants and slaves. Now he sat splayed loosely over the altarpiece, wishing he’d saved at least one of the mortals for later entertainment. He’d never been the best when it came to self-restraint.

There was a flash of darkness at the foot of the altar. Discord sat up, his interest piqued. The flash came again, stronger this time, and finally a burst of energy shook through the stone halls of the temple. A man in black leather appeared, crumpled on the floor as if in a great deal of pain. Discord’s eyes went wide as he realized who it was.

“Ares!"

He jumped down from the altar and went to his master. Ares rolled over and Discord saw the source of his pain: a dagger sticking out of his back.

Discord pulled it free.

“ _Agh_ ,” Ares cried out.

The god of war was left panting on the ground, pale and quivering. Only one thing Discord knew of could do that to an Olympian.

Discord sniffed the knife’s blade and looked down. “Hind’s blood?”

“Hind’s blood,” Ares grunted moodily. “That little waif got me while I wasn’t looking.”

Discord helped him up into a seated position. Ares was sweating.

“Good thing you got to me in time, boss,” he said. “Who knows what could have happened?”

Ares looked at his hands. “I know what’s happened. My power is reduced. Zeus has given it to another. I only just got away.”

“He thinks you’re dead?” Discord asked.

“It would appear so,” Ares said. He was already looking healthier, with the poisoned blade out of him. He glanced up at Discord. “Perhaps we can use this to our advantage. Institute a little change of management in my father’s house before he’s even got a clue. Discord, how would you like to kill the king of the gods?”

“Oh,” said Discord, sitting back. “Oh, I’d like that more than anything.”

Ares grinned. “Honey, just wait until you see me in a crown.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the cast list:
> 
> Charles Augustus Magnussen as King Magnus of [Tantalus](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Tantalus_\(Place\))  
> Janine Hawkins as [Serena](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Serena)  
> Mary Morstan as [Hades, God of the Underworld](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Hades)  
> Sally Donovan as [Persephone](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Persephone)  
> Sebastian Moran as [Discord, God of Chaos](http://hercxena.wikia.com/wiki/Discord)
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this experiment in diligence and discipline! This fic helped me break through a significant momentum block. :)


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